Identifiable
by DreamScene
Summary: Year Seven is full of uncertainties for all, who try to figure out others as well as themselves when the dust finally settles. Post HBP.
1. What Remains

Genre: Angst/Romance/Drama

Pairings: mainly Harry/Hermione, others TBA

Summary: After all is said and done, what is next? Year Seven is full of uncertainties for all, including the Golden Trio, who try to redefine themselves in relation to others. Post HBP.

A/N: So this is a bit of a departure for me. I don't usually write multi-part things, but this is going to keep bothering me if I don't keep writing it. I have little if no expectations for it. Read it or not, I'll try to keep this going. But don't get me wrong, I like reviews.

It's more of a mood piece, meaning it isn't really based on plot, kind of like a Wong Kar-Wai film. Which, if you haven't seen, go now!

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_Because he needs her like he needs medicine_

_She forgets to write him anyway_

- - -

His memory was a funny, fickle thing.

Everything considered, the selective amnesia might just have been the most normal thing to happen to him.

Harry Potter didn't quite remember the details of the last battle with Voldemort, even though he had fought for his life in the last instances of that dark wizard's existence. It should have been more dramatic in his mind's eye: he'd heard people talk about the slow motion you experienced when fighting for your life (_it's killed or be killed,_ they also said); the flashes of memories everyone claimed to see before a certain death ensued in a sick cliché.

Instead, it was relegated to a blur of incomprehensible movements and distorted words and some missing scenes. A censored film of recollection, broken and battered.

Inwardly, he always glad not to evoke those exact moments.

And perhaps, they might have just been lying the whole time about near death experiences. He was already an unwitting expert in that area. Still, he wasn't sure how to rationalize it to himself, much less anyone else. Then again, he was never sure how he was expected to explain those horrible moments to another.

But the morning after - he could recall that quite vividly.

While he was barely coming to grips with the events of the darkest night he'd ever experienced, Hermione Granger held onto him with a desperate grip, as if afraid to lose him to the long night's shadows. In the small cot they shared from some room, he could barely recall how he'd arrived there. Even years later, he sometimes wondered if she did.

No doubt she was trying the register what had happened and make sense of incoherent thoughts and fresh blurry memories, as though barely woken from the single worst nightmare of her life. He could feel the loud pulsing of her heartbeat against his shoulder blade.

Those early morning rays of the dawning sun peeking through the tiny, wretched window only filled the room with definitive shadows growing blacker against the incoming light. He meant to smile knowing she was there, hanging on with the remnants of a broken heart and little else.

For the first time, she'd been able to mourn over all the things and people they had lost along the way, when it was finally over. She felt the collective loss of sacrificed lives to achieve that end. And while they had ultimately won, it felt like the end of the world in some respects.

She grieved openly in the early dawn of that new, uncertain day.

Despite the exhaustion that seemed to penetrate into their very bones, neither one was able to sleep.

He dumbly noted that she cried when he couldn't. That she still could only showed her capacity to still deal with things as they came, even if it was remorse made the corners of his mouth twitch. It was not a smile, merely an impulse of his face to her presence. She still felt, which was far more than he could have mustered at the present state.

He didn't comfort her, knowing it wouldn't work and his heart wasn't into telling her reassuring things that he wouldn't believe himself. He didn't think he was very good at convincing others anyway. The words would no doubt come out clumsy and poorly thought out, perhaps too detached or insulting or soft but ultimately insincere. He didn't dare be the cause to another bout of her laments to add into the already endless night.

It was the darkest hour they were getting through and he couldn't believe he was still alive. By all accounts, he shouldn't have been. It was too much coincidence to be hunted down year after year and always being narrowly missed. He figured luck had narrowly managed to snatch him from another sure death. Either that or was he was supposed to expect a very gruesome demise to replace the one where he should have perished.

It was more than he could hope for at the moment. _Another day to live, how strange_ . . .

Her scalding tears bled freely on the collar of his shirt, eventually soaking through the cotton fabric not drenched in dried blood and hours old sweat. It burned his skin.

She held onto him fiercely, one arm hooked under his and tightly gripped his shoulder, dull nails marking him despite the layers of clothes. Her other arm was wound around his neck and joined her other hand in digging her fingers into his collar. She didn't pay mind to his injuries (not that he had been complaining anyway) and hadn't bothered with keeping a strong appearance, even for his sake. She could not, and would not bother trying to keep it together.

All she needed was to know that it was not some perverse dream taunting her if she fell asleep and would up waking to a cold, empty spot in the sheets beside her.

So she damned the considerate part of her mind and didn't bother letting go, even if he was bleeding and sore and tired. He would have to tough it out like her, as she was bleeding and sore and tired too.

They had one thing in common as they reeled in sorrow - hers tangible in silent tears, his in heavy brooding.

The warm mist of her breath between sobs only reminded him of what this war had already cost them. Ron had been hit with something and neither one could reach him in the midst of flying curses. Neither one had seen him since sunset. That had been the day before - a lifetime ago - as they irrevocably aged a few lifetimes overnight.

_They're gone. They're really gone._

Several faces flashed before him, followed by the lights trailing after curses. He saw Sirius, Cedric, Dumbledore between the threads of the worn pillowcase.

Red, yellow, and the occasional green lights passing by them – haunting colors. Unforgivables – a fitting name.

He supposed they would have made a pretty light display to an ordinary Muggle, if they were simply a fireworks exhibition on some holiday. That is, if such lights weren't meant to kill.

He had stopped being one more Muggle at the age of ten (_eleven_, his mind corrected, that voice in his mind sounding very much like Hermione), when he was introduced to the wizarding world. Even though drowning in sorrow, he wondered what it would have been like to have been completely ordinary; and most of all, an anonymous bloke. The Dursleys weren't difficult to endure. Nothing at all like the difficulties he had been expected to face, to _overcome_, for the sake of others.

For all the damage they'd endured, he had no idea world would be like from then on. Emptier, he knew, and not just as a cause of losing those who had defended him.

He would recall the light of a candle under the door being slowly eclipsed by the stronger light of the arriving sun.

When he finally regained his sense of immediacy, it was Hermione's tears that reminded him of rain on a hot summer day as they fell on his skin. _Right as rain_, she'd told him once as they hunted horcruxes. _Everything will be right as rain, Harry._

He wondered if her smile that day was supposed to be another isolated memory to contemplate in his solitude or prophetic in its hopefulness. A romantic idea, the latter. Silly really, considering the situation.

His eyes stung, though he was unsure if it was because it was due to the sunlight prickling his tired eyes, or the feeling of tightness in his throat as he choked on a surge of emotions when the sound of her crying finally broke through the numbness he'd barricaded himself behind, and exposed the desolation he desperately wanted to ignore.

At the moment, all he wanted to know what she said on that summer afternoon was true. If it _would_ be true one day. He found himself nostalgic over the spontaneous shower that had fallen unexpectedly on the three once upon a time.

Three. Once upon a time, there were three.

And then there were two.

But for the moment, there was the silence, that odd peace that allowed the proverbial dust to settle.

So he reached for her hand, and wouldn't let go as he waited to know if everything would be right for a change. And although he had been able to stand hours (_ages?_) before, just holding her fingers seemed to take the last vestiges of strength.

She was warm and better yet _alive_ meaning he was not being left to bear with the burden of being completely devastated and utterly abandoned. That alone allowed him to breathe a little easier. He didn't quite catch the quieting of her sobs at the small action and squeezed a little harder, just to make sure he wasn't delusional. _I'm not alone._

The shaky exhale that followed was painful. His lungs hurt. Oddly enough, he was able to recall chasing after her on some random afternoon until it hurt to breathe as it did then. She laughed that time, more for his benefit than her actual feelings at the moment. He would appreciate it more than the foolish accolades he'd collect in the time that would follow.

His face burrowed into the pillow, trying to figure out if it was really that easy not to breathe any longer. It wasn't.

The pain in his chest didn't subside at all, even with a weak heartbeat that kick started with a vengeful rhythm when he was forced to inhale deeply.

Gradually, one of her hands had loosened her hold on his shoulder to knot itself in his hair. He was cold despite the thick blankets that did nothing to warm his limbs, but he felt her feverish fingers when they singed his scalp slightly.

_Stay_.

_Stay with me._

He didn't look back, remembering another time when she used a story-telling voice, clear and a little authoritative. She explained the myth of Orpheus, who ventured heartbroken into the underworld to take his Eurydice back. And while he gained Hades' sympathy, he lost her for a second time, of course, as all great tragedies go. For Harry, whose life was forever marked by misfortune, the irony was not lost on him.

His fingers dug into her sleeve more than necessary.

You're bound to lose her, a voice warned. Clinical. Detached. Matter-of-fact.

_Please_.

She was still breathing against his neck, so he chose to ignore the warning.

Exhaustion took its toll, gradually weighing him down. His bones sank a little more into the mattress. The springs poked at him through the worn material. His eyes closed slowly, surrendering to the vague idea that maybe everything might eventually be all right.

What he didn't notice was that she lingered on a bit longer, almost drowned in grief, but followed afterward, like everything she did that concerned him.

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Whatever was left of summer holiday was spent on constant security and an increasing sense of isolation from everyone in general. His safety wasn't what concerned him after being dubbed The-Boy-Who-Live-To-Tell-About-It by seven different publications. Instead, he felt an absence from the cold part of the bed and the unmistakable feeling of a hardcover book lacking under the pillow.

Half empty.

Harry Potter was ever the pessimist.

The increasing concern was over the lack of owls coming through the window in the mornings. Ronald Weasley, who slept until noon, didn't pay the slightest attention to his growing exasperation in the early hours of the day.

Two weeks and no word of her.

She had fled like a stray leaf in the wind, out there somewhere. It didn't help when Ginny blew white fluffy dandelions after playing Quidditch. While he'd been a little happy at the win, the sight of flying featherlike pedals crushed it under its non-existing weight.

While he was far from lonely during his stay at the Burrow, there was a nagging sense of loneliness that ate away slowly at whatever remained from the war – well wishers, sanity, whatever. The only thing that didn't end was the incessant interview requests.

But she. She hadn't even said goodbye.

He never thought she'd wind up on the list of people who promptly vanished from sight. But he was proven wrong, yet again. This time the loyal brunette had turned her back on him.

It had been a Thursday since he's last seen her. The calendar told him it was Monday.

Two and a half weeks. Give or take a day. He was never very good at math.

Nowhere to reach her. No way to know how she was doing.

Hedwig ruffled her feathers.

He exhaled a bit forcefully.

At least she had upheld her promise, like a deal they'd shook hands on, except that the thought of him as an obligation didn't settle very well on his stomach. She was free and taking the opportunity to do as she pleased. She was free. She was without him.

He cracked his knuckles.

The parchment on top of the school trunk stared at him.

Somehow the quill got between his fingers.

Before he knew it, he started to write. And then hesitated.

An H appeared on the paper. H. As in Her. H-e-r.

He scratched it out.

The parchment, once flat and smooth was wrinkly and balled up in his fist. He tossed it across the room. It made a hollow sound and hid under the bed.

Worn curtains and bleary eyes. The sun was too strong when he'd woken up. He remembered that much. She didn't let go. She held on to his hand. Even when they'd determined that they were in one piece and largely uninjured, she hadn't let go.

He still felt the sharp edges of the parchment on his palm. It wasn't soft.

He shook his head, wanted to collect himself. But things never worked that way for him. Just as he willed himself to forget, a little bit at least, he looked through the window to see a carefully planned accident unfold. Dandelion petals and laughter. Ginny picking the flowers outside. _Weeds_, corrected his memory, sounding like her. It always sounded like her. Her. H-e-r.

He couldn't scratch this one.

Another clean piece of parchment appeared.

_I don't know where you are . . . _

He paused. And wished he knew.

His hand twitched, wanting to crumple something other than the poor excuse of a letter. Looking down, it didn't even qualify as a proper note.

His hand met his forehead. And despite feeling wounded, he couldn't call up any angry feelings. He wished her well. Really, he did. Except for the greedy little corner in his heart that tugged relentlessly at the slightest reminder of her. It wouldn't leave him alone. Not when she had.

Dandelion pedals swirled in the air, just outside the window, out of his reach. It'd be crushed if he tried to hold on to it. No doubt about it. They drifted off somewhere, weightlessly away from his destructive, clumsy hands, deciding on where to land. Always, with as much distance away from him. He tried not to think about it.

A corner of his mouth twitched. A half-hearted grimace. A half-empty smile.

His wrist moved.

The feather tickled the side of his face. It was soft and lacked warmth. A little too fleeting for his taste, he wound up scratching his cheek lightly in annoyance.

When he looked down, something else appeared on the parchment.

_I hope you come back soon._

With quill still in hand, he omitted one part.

_To me._

He wanted it so.


	2. Depth Perception

A/N: I forgot to mention in the last note that this is a sequel to Pinpoint and Mirepoix. Which, I hope you liked reading by the way. And it seems that lately, I'm in love with these kinds of stories. I'm such an angst whore, I know. But it's crack and I'm addicted. So addicted.

And please, feedback is love. So show me some.

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_The momentum is passing but the moment is eating us whole_

_We're surrounded_

- - -

The last time Hermione Granger bothered to study the ceiling was to clear cobwebs with a broom in Grimmauld Place. Harry had been a little touchy knowing that she'd used Firebolt to get the job done. He'd sulked for days after the initial heart attack at seeing her chase away old spiders in the corners of the hall.

It made her smile a little just by seeing him pout.

She stared at the ceiling this time, wondering how exactly she got into the messes she did. This time it wasn't a simple misuse of a gift. It was a misunderstanding. And she - a disaster in the works.

She lay lonely in her bed, feeling as desolate as ever. The sheets were too cold, the mattress too big.

Tonight.

She couldn't recall much. A blonde, some drinks and strange music.

Everything else had been reduced to precise impressions, all unlinked, in her memory at what had transpired afterward. It'd been a dream. She'd been just happened to be awake through the whole thing.

Sleepwalking, it was.

He'd complimented her, then taken her by the wrist up near the haphazard stairs. She'd been afraid the rickety winding metal steps might fall on them, shaking as they were by the vibrations of the speakers. It was a logical conclusion, and something she'd have rather forgotten to do for a moment – be rational. Reasonable, even.

He had grey eyes, that boy who noticed her from across the smoke filled café. It was all she could remember when he'd offered to buy her a drink. She could not remember his name. Didn't know if she had asked in the first place or if he had offered that information to begin with.

This wasn't what good girls did two days before school started. She knew, having been the poster girl for that particular brand of restraint, almost ascetic in some respects. At least that was the way Lavender Brown and the Parvati sisters made it seem. Even Ginny Weasley at times concurred the same conclusions. If they could only see her now . . .

From the way the shadows covered the blonde's head, it almost colored his hair differently. Darker. If she stared directly though, the illusion was broken, like being suddenly phased out of a daydream. She hated the feeling.

She breathed in through her nose, allowing it to exhale silently through clenched teeth. It was wrong to keep wanting something else, wasn't it? But she found it harder not to.

She maneuvered out of his out reach, not really wanting to know what he had in mind. She pushed him up against the wall instead, pretending that he didn't smell too much like cologne, he wasn't that much taller than her and that she didn't really want to see the winding staircase that threatened to fall on them.

He tasted like too much alcohol and early signs of regret, which she would later equate with an unsettling lightheadedness of indecision based on this experience.

It was sour and a little bitter. She'd never had the two at once. It was disorienting, even after steadying herself on his shoulder.

Even she had her moments of not giving a damn. Fuck the expectations, the image, the norm she was supposed to conform to. Since when were others' ideals supposed to matter to her? How did her manner affect anyone anyway? She kissed him harder.

Perhaps it was the alcohol and the amount she had imbibed that stirred in her veins. A surge of something rose furiously from the tip of her toes to her head. A head rush. An angry rush. What the hell did anyone know about the way she felt? She bit down on his lip.

A moment's hesitation and the good girl gave pause. Then her hand slid under his shirt. He flinched at the warmth of her fingers.

_Forget_, her conscience called. _There's no one waiting for you._

She allowed him to kiss her again. She was numb at that point, despite the heat on her face caused by too much to drink and the warmth on her fingers. She felt a light sheen of sweat on the boy's waist. He was tense under her touch. He was bony around the ribs where his heart beat when he pushed her hand further up along his soft skin.

Time to let go.

His own hands rested along her hips, rising without discretion up her waist, not caring if her shirt got caught up in the motion. His hands were clammy, cold. She willed herself not to draw back, not to move. This was normal, wasn't it? She scraped her nails along the brick wall as her fingers closed into a fist. Her other hand slid across his back, lightly scratched her nails against his back, unsure of what she was insinuating.

She ignored him when his hips moved against her.

Teenage hormones. Normal. _Right as rain._

The music wore on. She desperately wished for an impromptu rain to shower on them. Wash this feeling away. Bring back a simpler time.

She watched as other girls moved their bodies lifelessly onto the boys beside them. Passionless, all of them. Zombies. She'd seen them during the war. Killed a few while she was at it. Obliterated them, got rid of the things, whatever. All with a swish-and-flick. These people were no different. And she'd just joined their ranks. No one's fault but her own. She had no reason to cry.

Lazily, she was aware of the sloppy open mouth kisses he left on her neck. Her head rolled back and she caught the sight of dull neon lights patterned across the ceiling. Red, yellow, green . . .

None of them were as vibrant as that night.

She laughed, probably too close to his ear. What would he know about her anyway? Even when she wasn't looking at the lights, she saw green. It was everywhere.

Her eyes closed and a bit of her heart sank somewhere beneath her feet. It was promptly crushed by stiletto heels and a mini skirt. A girl bumped into them. It was not on accident. Hermione's guess was that she was eyeing the blonde. The machinating stare was enough for her to know the arrangement would be over. He would be leaving her soon, no doubt about it.

Her hand crawled out from under his shirt. Her palms were clammy and her lips burned. She was parched with no way to quench her thirst despite how much she'd had to drink. Two whiskey sours and several tequila shots did not amount to much in the past two hours.

Lost time. All of it.

She felt, more than saw, him sidestep her to slide across to exposed long legs and weird techno music.

Her back pressed up against the wall, momentarily wishing the world to stop. It was too fast. And she too slow.

She crawled back to the bar and refused to look back at the boy against the wall with her newest replacement.

She asked for another drink.

"Something strong," she requested.

- - -

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- - -

She didn't remember how she'd gotten back to her room, only that she'd been unable to sleep. However tired she had been at the café, she couldn't say she felt it as she stared upward.

Perhaps it was just the mere being around people that she found taxing on her energy. Or that solitude reenergized her. Whatever the reason, she was unable to let her worries slip away across into nothingness.

Green.

She remembered green neon too bright and intense to look at. It hurt her eyes. She still saw it even though the street lamps had dull halogen bulbs. Another ghost rose from the dust that floated in the beam of fluorescent orange light to haunt her. It wasn't enough that they came to her in dreams. Now she had to deal with them in her waking state.

She held on to the pillow. Her anchor. Soft and fluffy. Like a cloud. Only it's wasn't floating away and taking her with it.

Staring at the vast emptiness in her bed, she considered her options. She could apparate. But then it would cause trouble. She could fly, but was too afraid of heights and had no broom. She remembered a pout and his unwillingness to speak to her. That lasted only an hour.

And then there was the Knight Bus. Well, that would be hard to explain where she wanted to go in the dead of night. At least to herself, when she would eventually stop to think about it. Rationalize it, like all things.

_I wish you were here._

She clutched her pillow tighter, pulled the covers over herself. She pretended the lumpy shape looked like a body beside her. But it wasn't warm. It didn't have a pulse.

She couldn't stop staring at the ceiling.

The questions would come, no doubt about it. The what, when, where, why and how, she could hear already - insistent and nagging. It wasn't as if she could wear the scars on her sleeve in full display of all. Not like Harry and his scar. It hid somewhere beneath her skin, under logic and memory.

She absently traced a zigzag pattern on her sheets. Back and forth, her finger swayed in a tiny dance of mere centimeters. If she didn't focus on where her nail traveled, she could make out a blurry image of a forehead.

It frayed around the edges the more she concentrated on it.

She stared at the ceiling instead.

She could pretend the light invading her room was from a fireplace. Dying embers in the middle of the night haunted her right away. Dark hair. Peaceful expression. A soft stare.

She'd fallen in love once upon a time.

The image became clearer.

It would be easier not to remember. Not to hope, not to need or want or expect. She'd done too much of that already.

But the loneliness wouldn't let her and the guilt didn't ease. Her sheets were still cold. They were heavy, weighing her down into the metal coils of the springs under the thin material of the cushion beneath her.

She couldn't recall the kiss she shared with the stranger. She remembered the feeling: too rough, too eager that it was a relief when she noticed the pair of shapely legs clad in black fishnets took him away. Her discomfort hadn't faded completely.

Those feet had shiny black heels. Patent leather perhaps. It must have been painful just to walk in those things. The idea of hellish calluses stayed on her mind as the single most interesting aspect of the night. She could hardly stand to look at spiked heels, much less wear them. But, somehow knowing the blonde had gone away made her conscience lighten a little. It made breathing a little easier.

The silence weighed her down again. The metal springs dug into her spine.

Even she had her moments of not giving a damn. This was not one. Yet it hardly involved the boy she'd just met and promptly forgotten. It regarded the one she'd known for years and wasn't allowed to forget.

The shadows plastered along the walls offered no answers.

Hogwarts' official term began the next day.

- - -

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- - -

Hermione didn't arrive the first day with the entire student population of Hogwarts.

Harry Potter didn't so much as blink at her absence. But he was convinced it was his fault somehow. That he'd been too eager to see her and the anticipation had translated over to her in anxiety. Of course neither of them were telepathic. Apparently, it was a rarity even in the wizarding world.

An irrational answer.

But it was just the kind of explanation that made sense when he was staring at the empty seat beside him. The one occupied by the newest Gryffindor inductee. He wished the brunette would move. Find another place. Sit somewhere else that didn't take up room someone else should be in.

The perfectly sliced carrots on his plate were pushed back and forth. A pacing rhythm the fork reluctantly kept up with.

Left. And the accompanying screeching sound is made along the porcelain surface. No one else can hear it but him.

Right. If he keeps it up it might burn right on through to the wooden table under. Scorch it. Mark it with his initials. Or her name. H-e-r. Even when she wasn't there, there were reminders. Even the lack of such ones seemed to bite him on the ass.

The timing was off. No wonder her back was turned.

The feeling is as instinctual as his doubts. Something is off. Something is wrong. He just knew it without any actual logic or reason. He didn't have the benefit of images in his mind to help him figure it out. And he remembered why he's never needed ESP to know.

A hand reached out. Put his down. He heard the clatter of metal before it disappeared along with everything else on the table along with it. He studied the fingers vacantly. Small, slim and a bit pale.

And when he looked at the owner of such a hand, it was little Ginny Weasley. Only she wasn't so little and he'd kissed her before and she was staring at him with those gentle understanding eyes. Her Weasley freckles pressed against his arm.

She was warm and yet, the embrace lacked everything he wanted.

She's not so little anymore and yet she could almost pass off as his younger sister. His chin rested on the top of her head. She smelled like fresh cut grass and her mother's kitchen after Mrs. Weasley made pastries.

They're a world away from safe havens and laziness and the ensuing lethargy. He could almost say he missed it, except for one part.

It followed him in dreams.

- - -

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- - -

He dreamt of last summer.

The excessive muggy heat seeping through their clothes, they walked along the cloudy beach. It was bright and blue.

"I think we're close," he called.

Instead of an affirmative, Harry heard laughter.

Turning, she caught his eye. Smiling, she burned the image into his mind. Cut-off jeans, old threadbare black t-shirt, well worn sneakers. The sun appeared on cue to darken her skin, brighten up her hair – golden in the light. She was planning on something.

"Lighten up, it's the beach," she'd said.

Sure enough, she stuffed sand down Ronald Weasley's shirt. Characteristically, Ron shrieked.

"Are you mental?" Ron yelled.

"You're so serious," she said, addressing him while heaping on more sand on Ron's head. "And besides, it's just sand."

"This coming from the all around school girl who panics over not reading three chapters ahead," Ron muttered.

She punched him lightly on the shoulder. And then flashed another smile and it was all right.

Even Ron forgave her. Eventually. The Weasleys were not unknown for their ability to hold a grudge.

"It's the beach," she repeated by way of explanation.

"It's official," Ron declared.

"She's gone mad," the boys said at once.

She threw muddy clumps of sand at them.

"You're the only ones who are so grumpy at the shore. I mean look around you," she waved her arms. "It's such a beautiful place and it would such a shame to not admire it, at least a little."

Discreetly, he watched her. This was a silly idea. And for the mostly subdued girl who did nothing better than study and learn with an unmatched passion, he should have worried. This could have sounded like a last request. A last time for any of them.

He didn't. Worry, that is.

That was when the rain fell, sudden and cooling.

"And now we're sodding wet," Ron pronounced.

"The man's got a point," Harry conceded.

Seemingly exasperating, she threw her arms around both their shoulders. However, instead of knocking their heads together, she merely kissed them both on the cheek.

"So you remember," she hinted with a slight threat in her tone.

"What? That you threw mud at us?" Ron said sourly.

She kicked him halfheartedly.

"That this was one of the times we actually did something memorable. For just the three of us."

"It's silly," he said. She was acting differently. She'd been that way since Ron had disappeared and eventually returned in one piece. As if she'd suddenly lost a great big weight on her shoulders. But it was still there. Just as it was on his.

"Got that right," Ron agreed.

She gripped his arm, firmly holding on him. And dragged them both out under the pouring rain.

"Right as rain," she declared, leaning her head on his shoulder. "Everything will be right as rain, Harry."

She'd whispered the last part in his ear.

Like a secret.

Like hope.

He wanted to believe it.


	3. Perhaps to Dream

_I remember lying on the bedroom floor_

_You were holding me little honey, kissing my soul_

- - -

Harry Potter was a sore winner.

The reluctant star of the magical world, he was now the wretched hero who seemed to desire nothing more than to hide beneath a rock and be forgotten, like all great hermits. But then his life had been put under a microscope since his tragic loss before he had even known what love from parents meant.

Ginny Weasley understood, to a certain degree that Harry Potter had overcome more than his fair share of horrors through his seventeen years of life. To say she was suspicious of the was the least of her concerns. Harry just wasn't paying attention to her the way he used to. It wasn't the worst part, though. As the youngest Weasley, she'd been accustomed to being overlooked by her brothers' antics, relegated instead to waiting in the dimness of their shadows.

What bothered her was his distance. He wasn't letting her get close enough to know what ailed him, to know how to heal him.

She waited, just as before, when he'd run off with her brother and Hermione to save the world. He'd excluded her on purpose during that time. For her safety, he had said in three concise words. That meant he cared about her, right? In retrospect, it now sounded like she'd been condemned, a sentence she was paying for although she had yet to understand the nature of the crime she'd committed.

She found herself believing in it then, but she noted the change in his demeanor upon his return. He barely paid attention now, when the heroes had won and the story had given them a happy ending. She was waiting for that part to happen to her. And he . . .

In her eyes, he was moping instead.

While she could not begin to fathom the scope of loss that made up his melancholy, she also couldn't help that nagging feeling that she was being ignored on purpose despite herself.

She'd never seen such a wretched hero. Here was the sore winner before her and she wasn't quite sure how to react to that. It was a fairy tale gone wrong. She scoffed at the idea of being a damsel in distress. Instead, she was the unwanted princess, a long suffering yet discarded love interest.

But there was a certain way of handling the Boy-Who-Lived and she hadn't quite mastered that at the moment, which very much reminded her of a petulant child throwing a tantrum. One that she couldn't handle, by the looks of it. Rather, she tried to be supportive, she did. Encouraging words and smiles did not seem to have much effect as he dwelled in a never ending misery that hadn't let up even if he did triumph over the ultimate evil of their generation.

Still, part of her just wanted him to snap out of it. And soon. Especially with the more than sympathetic attention he'd warranted from a number of girls with delusions of cheering him up in not-so-innocent ways.

If only he'd listen.

In the meantime, she shared a laugh with Neville Longbottom, at the first breakfast of the official Hogwart's term in the Great Hall.

She noticed Harry how had attempted a half hearted clap to show he was paying attention at dinner the previous night. The first year could have gone to Slytherin for all he cared, as he unenthusiastically put his hands together after every new student exited the dais.

Patience, her mother had advised her. Every girl had to have patience when it came to a boy.

While it was not generally her strongest suite, (as Molly Weasley had often proclaimed of her last pregnancy and how she was born a week earlier than expected and made quite a bit of fuss in the womb while she was there), she'd try.

She hoped he'd notice too.

He had to.

-

- - -

-

Harry Potter lay with his arms behind his head, staring upward at the space between the four posts of his bed. He could tell that it was too early to get up and too late to go back to sleep without the aid of a clock. He was stuck. An in-between of dreams. The no man's land of consciousness and lethargy.

The dawn of Hogwart's new term had never looked so bleak in his eyes, even compared with the year when lots of unexpected rain fell in just about every Care of Magical Creatures class.

At the moment, he couldn't wipe out the feeling that early mornings had left in his memory. Perhaps the discomfort of sleeping with a book under his pillow had made waking up less than ideal when he realized he had a stiff neck.

Still, he swore he could feel her lips between his brows months afterward.

But she'd been there, hanging on to him. He supposed that the moment she let go, he started clinging to the hope that they could figure out what had transpired before that night. He'd seen something in her eyes several times – the common room, the beach, Grimmauld Place. Those little bits that he could recall that made him hope. At his worst moments, he cursed them, while at his best, he tended to contemplate them. He daydreamed, even.

They'd been together sharing each other's company, once upon a time. Though it had been far from ideal or romantic, he'd grown attached to the shape of her beside him, tired after keeping vigil for so long. She'd been warm and soft as they'd shared the covers.

Once upon a time. Like a fairy tale. A twisted one (even before the villain had permanently exited the story). Because that was the way his world revolved and he didn't really bother to question it. He turned to his side, imagining her there. His hand reached out to the empty space along the mattress.

_You should be here._

It wasn't as if anything had happened between them. It was never an issue he'd addressed because he'd simply assumed she'd be there when the time was right. And again, he let the opportunity slip through his fingers like he'd done in the past and there was no way of denying this latest slip up.

The question lingered on the tip of his tongue, infuriating and persistent. She had to know.

The sheets fisted in his hands.

It was as if she was denying that the aftermath of the war had never happened. That she no longer needed him, or wanted any part of his life once their roles in the fighting ended.

Despite the brighter sunlight growing crawling across the ceiling, he grew more tired. The silence in his room didn't help, especially when he was the only in it. So much for Head Boy and all its perks.

His head hurt though it had nothing to do with the scar. He got out of bed.

And he found Hermione much the same way as every year since they'd attended.

It was quite typical, really, he supposed, the way the universe revolved to drive him mad. Again, he didn't question it.

-

- - -

-

Ronald Weasley had little tendency to smile (virtually none) when it came to early classes.

Waking up at the crack of dawn was an evil punishment in and of itself, he thought as he fumbled around in the slowly brightening room and slipped on his school robes. The early morning deadened his senses, especially those dealing with depth perception, so it didn't come as a complete surprise when he stubbed his foot on the corner of his trunk.

"Bloody hell," he muttered thickly after the initial hiss. "Shit."

Despite this early morning blunder, he figured he was decent for the rest of the day, after hobbling his way to the door.

"Ron," he heard Dean Thomas say. "You realize that you're wearing a bath robe, dontcha mate?"

It cut through the moment of sleep-numbing bliss. He rubbed his eye lids, intending to clear up his vision.

A second and possibly third, "shit" emerged in the silence of the room when he looked down at what he wearing.

He dug around in the reliable old school trunk, only to wake up, half panicked and somewhat more blinded with adrenaline like he'd felt during fights alongside Harry, when his robes didn't immediately appear. He pulled out old books, several ties and seemingly all left foot shoes. Nothing.

Several layers of clothes later, it was halfway empty.

When he finally saw black cloth, he pulled it out triumphantly, as if he'd just won the TriWizard cup, despite the wrinkles.

And before he tossed back the things he'd pulled out in haste, a glint of light shined in his tired eyes. His arms put down the load he carried when he decided to inspect what he saw. A mirror perhaps, which he supposed might have been one of Ginny's that somehow wound up in his things.

His fingers pulled an old sock out, one that no longer had a pair, a scrap of white cloth, lonesome with constant wear from a time he barely remembered. He saw an old tin box, one that he'd apparently forgotten about. It was rusting in some spots, like the corners and parts of the bottom. Inside, he found a piles of collectible cards and scraps of neatly folded paper. It smelled of chocolate.

He'd never been so annoyed to wake up so early and to have that drowsy feeling taken away so suddenly.

The first day of term wasn't supposed to be like this.

-

- -

-

For Hermione, all beginnings were not supposed to be tense, especially with anything dealing with school. She was used to the occasional wonderings aloud of her fellow classmates about the courses to follow that year and the amount of the workload, which they all prayed was lesser than the previous. She'd seen some of them light candles with the expectations that they would be heard somehow and be made to do less. A few even prayed the rosary in the hopes that divine intervention would do the trick. Others had made figurines with a suspicious resemblance of the most disliked professors.

Of course, neither of them worked. At least for her, she wished the work would never end. It occupied her, at the very least and any distraction was welcome.

Usually, the first day of term was one of the best of the year. She liked waking up in the morning to the silence of the newly risen sun. The first morning of nothing to do, no worries and no disappointments. Not yet.

A new day, a new year – she could almost taste hope on her tongue and the excitement of a job well done once the inevitable exams and assignments were completed. It offered promise.

But today, she felt no such adrenaline. Instead, she felt the aftertaste of coffee in her mouth during her grandfather's funeral. It was the last time she'd ever drank the stuff. Even in memory, it was bitter.

She skipped breakfast, preferring instead to stay in her room, staring at the single she had been assigned for the rest of the year. Head Girl had its perks, but she found the solitary nature of a sole bed within those walls a very lonely thing. It was an isolating thing, especially without any fellow human being beside her.

She had been looking forward to sharing a room with her classmates. Well, in a way. She had hated the sloppiness of her previous roommates - all boy-talk, lipstick and strong perfume. But she likened it as a part of the Hogwarts experience – it was something she was readily expecting.

So she wallowed a little in the pale sunlight, which gradually threatened to burn her eyes. She turned away when it became too strong for her stare to match its intensity. It was going to be a long day, no doubt.

Eventually, she made her way along the empty corridors, heading along with purpose to make it to class on time, despite her misgivings.

She paused at the door that led to Charms. Her breath held on to her. The doorknob was cold against her palm.

Through the glass, she could see him, before an open window. He was leaning his arms on the windowsill, busily contemplating the outdoors for no apparent reason whatsoever.

She observed him as he turned his head to better look at a flock of birds flying diagonally across, the window being sliced in half with him in front of it all. Her hand gripped the handle of strap of her book bag and she could not deny the sick feeling welling up inside her.

Definitely not the first day she was used to experiencing.

"Ms. Granger."

She spun around to find one of her teachers looking directly at her.

"Professor McGonagall," she answered. "I – excuse me, but you gave me a bit of a fright."

An eyebrow raised very subtly on behalf of her former teacher. By the way she readjusted her bag and tucked her hair behind an ear, she was the picture of nervousness, a simple school girl and not someone who had just been a protagonist in a recent war. Moody's, "Constant vigilance!" rang in her mind. Apparently that lesson hadn't stuck. Even she, the most astute of students, hadn't picked up on it. She wanted to laugh. Almost.

Professor McGonagall would not find that amusing in the slightest.

"Ms. Granger, I need to speak to you."

"Yes, professor."

As she followed behind the headmistress, she wondered if she'd make it to class on time.

-

- - -

-

He stared at the empty desk in front of him. Too early he attended class, even before any of the professors had even begun to seek out the vicinity of the classrooms.

Though he would have usually gone to the Quidditch pitch for air, the idea of reaching the place seemed a rather tiring prospect, especially since he was forbidden to disapparate within school grounds. He'd always gone there to be alone, to ponder things when he dwelled on them too much and to ignore the increasing pressures when they became burdens . . .

He sighed, staring at a flock of black birds flying in formation. One in particular, with a few white feathers in its wings lagged behind. It seemed to struggle to keep up.

The longer he looked, he made his way over to the window, resting his elbows on the sill, hoping to study the flight pattern of the wayward bird a bit better.

The flock continued southward. Autumn would be arriving soon. He could almost taste the chill in the breeze sometimes. He supposed it was something he picked up from playing Seeker, having to fly so high and the close calls the game entailed.

The bird landed on a branch instead.

His gaze went on to the retreating figure of birds. They went on, as if nothing had happened. He rested his chin on his hand.

It seemed that the longer he waited, the more nothing happened.

Silence.

It stretched on around the classroom, invading the vacant seats, bouncing off the walls and sticking to every corner. He imagined some stuck to some empty part of his heart.

He was still waiting. The bell didn't ring and no one dived in to the desks.

He slid a hand behind his neck, mussing up his hair. Not that it mattered what it looked it anyway. He'd been told it was a perpetual mess. Hermione had said so once. He didn't help his appearance with the general lack of upkeep.

He looked away and found the bird still perched atop the tree. In the distance, he could barely make out the fading figure of birds. They were dots at that point. He'd seen a painting like that before. All tiny dots making up the bigger picture. Pointilism. It sounded like a canvas being poked with a brush.

It made sense now. But back when she'd shown it to him, he didn't know what she meant with that soft smile in her explanation.

He was saddened by watching the bird, lonely as ever, and he supposed it was probably gazing forlornly at the lack of companions.

Poke, poke.

Just one dot in the bigger picture. And apparently, as expendable as any.

Poke.

A flutter of wings passed before him.

Poke, poke.

He thought he had heard voices somewhere behind him. But the door was closed and no one stood in the corridor. He turned back and looking up, he found a pair of birds sharing the same branch.

Before he could think it over much, Charms, the first class of the day, officially began.

Poke.

-

- - -

-

She made it class on time after all.

And spent it staring at the messiest head of hair she'd ever laid eyes on. It was both a comfort and an annoyance.

-

- - -

-

The rest of the week fared much the same way. It was always awkward speaking to her fellow classmates. Somehow, it translated over to her friends.

"Is _Hogwarts, A History_ longer or something this year?" Ron asked.

"It's a new edition, Ron." To soften the curtness of her response, she bumped shoulders with him lightly.

"What did you do for the rest of the summer holiday?" his sister asked, looking at the list of assignments that week.

"Nothing," she lied. "Just here and there."

"Is that why you didn't write?"

She schooled her features and forced herself to smile. It didn't quite reach her eyes, but the Weasleys didn't seem to notice.

"Well, there isn't much to tell. It was quite boring," she replied, flipping through the pages of the newest thick volume. Chapter four waited for her patiently.

She could hardly wait.

Ginny simply nodded in agreement.

-

- - -

-

Hermione seemed distant.

Harry noted, much to his dismay, how her eyes avoided him carefully. That she looked at him briefly and just long enough to turn away before it became inappropriate outright staring. The way she figured, it was so he would not reproach her for not acknowledging him.

Upon closer inspection, he concluded that she was distant.

To her, it was some progress.

But he got the distinct feeling that she didn't really see him at all. At least, not in the way he wanted her to. She seemed to stare, unaware of anything that wasn't in print and thoroughly researched by experts of vast and distant fields. All professionals. Not amateur sleuths like them. Like the trio they were.

At least that was the way he persisted to believe it was.

-

- - -

-

The class wore on endlessly. For her, even with infinite patience, Professor Binns could really push the limit.

She stared at a corner of parchment left untouched by her writing. A clean slate. She decided it to fill it with nonsense and make a mess of the only neat part of the paper.

_I miss you. I'm sorry. I want . . ._ (and scratched this out). She began again. _I hope._

But she wasn't exactly sure what she asking for. She left the classroom feeling agitated, though it was difficult to point out what exactly bothered her so.

_Liar_.

-

- - -

-

Professor McGonagall called her to the office once more before lunch. She didn't eat much anyway, so she cut the break short and trudged her way down the hall.

"Weeping willow," she said to the statue.

It seemed even McGonagall hadn't stopped mourning. Not yet. It figured the passwords should contain some reminder of that void. Her hand pressed against the exposed brick in the wall before making the climb up to the headmistress' chambers.

-

- - -

-

"I trust your summer went well, Ms. Granger?"

"As well as can be expected," she replied, frowning slightly at the headmistress's attempt at small talk. The woman was known for being straightforward when it came to meetings.

"And would you care to tell me what the meaning of this is?" she asked.

She didn't have to wait long before the inevitable, at least. She stared at her fingernails, uneven at the ends. They needed to be filed down.

Minerva McGonagall held a slightly crumpled note, which Hermione recognized as her own handwriting.

At the student's silence, she glanced at the wall of past headmasters, her eyes lingering on the latest portrait on the far right.

"Judging from the beginning of this note, it reads like a resignation letter."

Hermione decided that her nails did look ragged indeed.

"Yes ma'am."

"And as you know, the time period allotted for resignation is three months into the school term, regardless of year. Although it is a little strange that you sent it before arriving."

"I understand."

"You have had a record of following school regulations, judging from your past decisions that have allowed you to rise as a prominent student. I cannot see why you would want to leave that, Ms. Granger," she went on. "But I will leave that decision up to you now, and if you feel the same way in three months, you may leave then."

The silence stretched on in the office, even while Fawkes the phoenix groomed himself.

"Have you decided?"

Head inclined slightly downward, she had a clear view of her shoes. Laces, patent leather, toe and sole. One could have been a mirror image of another had it not been for the minor scuff mark on the inside of the left one.

"Yes," followed by a nod.

"And you're sure about this?"

_No_.

"Miss Granger?"

If Harry has taught her one thing over the years, it's how to lie. With the amount of practice, she wasn't burdened by it any more.

Bravely, she raised her eyes to level with McGonagall's and smiled a little.

"Yes."

-

- - -

-

A sigh.

"Can you believe how boring this term is starting?" she heard a sandy haired fifth year say.

"Considering the scares all of last year, you'd think it'd be more interesting around here," his darker haired friend replied. "My mum freaked and demanded that I go home immediately when the war broke out."

"It's rather disappointing, not to have been there to see any of it happening. You know, like a muggle action film."

"I heard He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was seven feet tall. I wonder who would play him in a movie."

"And compared to Harry Potter, it must have been just like David and Goliath, no?"

"I would have wanted to be there to see it firsthand."

"You would have pissed yourself and begged for your mum."

An indignant huff.

"Would not!" said the skeptic.

"You have. Remember _Nightmare on Elm Street_?"

And then,

"But don't you wonder how exciting it would be to be in that situation?"

"Must be nice to be the hero. You get all the attention, all the praise . . ."

"All the girls!"

-

- - -

-

Hermione couldn't escape the bits of gossip floating around. All of it about the war. Harry's courage, his revenge, his moment of glory. The actor who would play him in a muggle film. The biographer who would chart his life. She figured she'd play a minor role in either of those productions. Not that she cared either way. The truth of it would never be truly comprehended, but sensationalized, dramatized. All of it faked in some way.

The rumours bothered her nonetheless. It needled into her side, annoying and persistent. There was no end of it since the term had started a week ago. Girls kept asking what Harry's favourites were. Song, colour, book, and candy, among other things became the object of obsessive speculation. She gave all the wrong answers. Boys kept asking about his Quidditch statistics, usually about who exactly had given him Firebolt. She hadn't the foggiest, but managed an answer that revolved around an obscure relative.

Perhaps not so far from the truth, as the image of Sirius floated in her memory, reminding her of his loss.

It seemed that not a lot of people could appreciate what effort they had gone through that summer. Horcruxes were just the beginning. Dealing with the Death Eaters and Voldemort had been something she never wanted to relive. Ever.

If only any of them had known how it had really happened. How badly she and Harry had been shaken up by the whole ordeal. How close they had nearly cut it that time. It wasn't awe inspiring. It was absolute fear that drove her.

They wouldn't hear it from her though.

She pointed her wand from behind the usual desk.

"Silencio," she whispered.

-

- - -

-

He pretended not to care if she defended him or not.

It was a lie.

Because it did matter to him when she did denounce the latest rumours being spread about him. Even Ginny and Ron couldn't explain the strange smile that surfaced on his face after they'd heard that Hermione had cursed a pair of fifth years in the library.

"Slander," Hermione had said in the most shame inducing tone that he was sure would make his aunt and uncle cower in embarrassment.

It cost Gryffindor twenty points. Ten for the curse. The other ten were for not setting an example to her fellow peers as Head Girl.

He wasn't around to hear her laugh into her pillow. At first, she was hoping to muffle the irrational laughter that bubbled up inside of her. Instead, it took on a different form and she found herself nearly suffocated by the downy filled cushion. When she became aware what the wet marks were on the fabric of the pillow cover, she realized she had been crying.

_It's only the first week_, she thought miserably.


	4. Refusal

A/N 1: So, I've been crazy busy. Long story short, here's another chapter.

A/N 2: If anyone's been wondering how this ties with some of the previous stories, read Mirepoix. There's a reference of it here. So if you haven't read it, please do so. It'll make sense, I swear.

Enough of my babbling. On with the story.

- - -

_All these people in my life, they seem so in love_

_Well, I am not_

- - -

Draco Malfory woke up under the covers, feeling suffocated under the light cotton sheet. For being something of a popular figure in the blue-blood wizard society, he wasn't really giving a damn about keeping up appearances like his father had wanted.

Narcissa Malfoy hadn't stopped her incessant mothering after the Dark Lord's fall. So much for devotion, he thought.

Pansy Parkinson was doing the same as well in her own way, it seemed, as he pushed her arm off his ribs. She groaned sleepily, shifting slightly as her grip readjusted to dig into the edge of the mattress.

He pushed his hair back which had been tangled by Pansy the night before and felt his skin slick against his palm.

Something about her brand of comfort was both immediately gratifying in its intensity and yet, unfulfilling in the aftermath. It reminded him of his feud with Potter, of which he could not remember how it started, only that the animosity was mutual. While fighting with Potter was somewhat satisfying, he wasn't sure what to do make of sharing his covers with Parkinson.

He hardly dreamed since arriving at school, something that left him grateful after witnessing the horrors the Death Eaters performed.

Pansy shifted again, facing away from him. He caught the sight of bare shoulders and wondered why the hell she had chosen his bed to hide between the sheets. In his mind, fear was what had driven her. He'd barely understood what made her reach out to him from inside a broom closet and practically attack him. She'd tasted the way he remembered — like whiskey and dark chocolate. It lingered like a memory, although he wasn't sure why it was him she sought. During the war, he hadn't heard any news regarding the Parkinsons, even in the hushed rumours that abounded in the classrooms.

She was the first to slide her hands under his clothes, seeking something he couldn't see. He'd gone along with it, like any hot-blooded male would have done in his situation. Still, the urgency didn't escape his attention in the darkness of that enclosed space where nothing mattered to her except feeling something other than the constant despair brought on by constant conflict, real or perceived.

When her legs, which wrapped around him tightly, finally let go, he'd been able to breathe. The rush of air that followed hit his lungs and burned, although he found that he had little use for it anyway.

He thought of his mother that night when he laid awake in his bed as he'd often done at night. She had often spoken about loyalty and love—silly things his father had never really bothered to explain, at least not in those words.

Instead, Lucius spoke of image and power as the only two things to live life by. As a child, Draco found his father's words had a hold on him, despite not being a spell. Perhaps it was his upbringing as a wizard, but the mystique of the old man's words meant something, especially as they mostly deal with knowing the right (although not necessarily good) people to get ahead. It seemed that growing up had made them lose their magic, as he had little to believe in. The Malfoy name had been disgraced for a number of reasons he could count on one hand.

Voldemort followers.

Dark wizard traitors.

Mudblood defenders.

Those were the whispers he'd heard among the talk about Potter's heroics, his sacrifices, his loyal friends that resulted in a triumph.

Draco, in typical manner, saw things slightly differently. Never let it be said he would not resort to rationalizing (read: full-blown denial).

Rather than the Malfoys being the reviled family of high wizard society for being indecisive when they changed sides under the threat of death, he thought of opportunism. To get ahead, they had to adapt to the situation. The circumstances called for their sacrifices, things which they were not capable of performing. His thoughts drifted to an old man he could not murder as he'd been expected to.

He shook his head, the image leaving him.

Of all the sins he'd been accomplice to, that last one on the list burned him. The image of big hair and brown eyes came to mind, irritating him instantly. She always knew the answers, understood the questions and calculated favorable odds. Her mind was like clockwork and he hated it. She was the embodiment of loyalty found in all definitions, that Mudblood.

Regret soaked through him like sweat, although he wasn't sure what he wanted to take back—not going through with killing the old man or having thought himself capable in the first place. The next thing to flash in his mind was of a mentor—one who understood the capricious nature of balance when creating something as lethal as a poison or vital as a potion. The man had been patient enough to understand him and talk him through the vagaries of Death Eaters as he'd experienced them.

That man had been a traitor as well. Just like him. Severus Snape was never truly on his side.

So much for devotion.

He turned sides, just like his mentor. It was just like him to always follow another's footsteps.

He breathed in, wondering how the hell he'd gotten himself into such messes without a helping hand to lead him into some order and logic which would instill him with the certainty that the world would not suddenly turn around on its axis and crash upside down, killing them as it rewound itself.

As stuffy as he found his room to be, he didn't move from the bed. It had become habit, this thing between him and Pansy. She often came to him and he didn't mind the company, especially when the nights were longer than he'd expected with the insomnia he experienced. She gave of herself quite freely, without being the demanding girl who wanted everyone to see her on his arm all the time. She'd become quite the opposite, not caring what he thought of their little arrangement. There were no questions, no pre-set deal of their shared nights, just the instant gratification of their supple bodies seeking each other in the dark.

He thought nothing of it in the mornings. She seemed to do the same, tending not to bother him with aimless chatter in public. She found solace with her classmates, prattling on as usual with familiar classmates and barely looked at him.

The alarm sounded, announcing a new day of class that awaited them both.

He thought nothing of it.

- - -

-

- - -

It was long before the war that Hermione Granger learned that academic work was the best distraction for whatever ailed the soul. Before even setting foot in Hogwarts, School of Magical Arts for Wizards and Witches (she'd memorized the entire formal title once she'd received her admission letter) books had made their way into her heart. She remembered being nine and heartbroken at the announcement of her grandfather dying of a heart attack. He'd only just held her the day before, smiling and giving her all sorts of sweets that her parents would have disapproved from their medical standpoint as practicing dentists.

"It's rubbish," the dear old man said as he handed her another plate of Sacher torte, an entire cake barely arrived from Vienna that morning. "What your parents tell you about cavities."

She stayed quiet as he looked rather distantly out of the window. He was seeing something her young eyes could not comprehend. She wouldn't forget his next words.

"You're supposed to enjoy life. Now eat your cake and don't mention this to your parents," he said.

Smiling behind her tea cup, she didn't have to be told twice to dig into the best dessert she'd ever had. What she hadn't known then was that it would be the last time she'd ever enjoyed pastries with someone she had been fond of. He'd gone in his sleep in a week, she later learned.

Somewhere behind the pages of a Dickens book, she learned all about unrequited love. It seemed fitting at the time, knowing that life could deal her hard blows that she'd somehow learn to stand up against when she was being denied the love of someone who could no longer return it. It also helped that the hard cover shielded her red rimmed eyes from her distraught mother, who could barely comprehend what had just occurred and _why_. Always why.

It seemed now, more than ever, she took the lesson to heart. Education was not only a means to protect oneself with knowledge, but she felt it provided some distance from the reality outside of four walls, which were both protective and confining.

She found some humor in the overwhelming sense of irony. Paradoxes, she concluded, were stupid. And yet, she had the infuriating needling at her side telling her she was stuck in one.

After rereading an embarrassingly worn copy of Great Expectations, it seemed the story took on a similar meaning from that summer eight years earlier. She doubted she could ever be Estella, who had the ability to make a boy pine after her for the rest of her life as way of justifying his existence and making himself worthy of her. She wasn't as regal, manipulative or arrogant, for starters. She was simple and unassuming and didn't think much of her looks. Despite being a fictional character, Estella was an exceptional beauty—haunting, alluring and impossible to ignore—things she would never be. She'd learned as much about herself over the summer, when she'd gone largely ignored by random boys she'd met—all vacant eyes and next to no sense of discovery in conversation.

Instead, their questions were quite simple: What's your name? Want a drink? Meet me outside? (While she'd lied about the first, she answered yes to the latter two.) It was not just familiar territory, it had become a recurring scene along with recycled pick up lines and disposable moments.

Ron's prior infatuation with her had not resulted in much except for petty bickering and her patience cut short as a long term after effect of that brief foray into what she supposed was romance. As for their mutual friend, it was yet to be seen, but she held little hope for that. He barely looked at her since the term began and she couldn't blame him.

There was an air of unresolved issues that hovered around them both, that seemed to her like the lingering taste of doubt in the back of her mouth.

"We'll figure this out," she remembered him telling her once in a hushed whisper. She'd been hanging on to him, arms around his neck, wishing it wasn't a dream or a figment of her imagination playing cruel tricks on her tired mind.

It had been a lifetime ago or so it felt. And in some ways, it was.

She repeated those four words to the empty space in her room.

Out of habit, she reached under the pillow to find that familiar outline of the book. It was the smallest comfort she'd have that day.

- - -

-

- - -

Luna Lovegood had a tendency to look cheerful at the crack of dawn, despite most people's annoyance. She smiled easily and toyed with her radish earrings unconsciously before Professor Trelawney made her usual flustered, tardy entrance.

The grandfather clock chimed nine a.m., earning a few groans and waking others from a light doze. She watched as Dennis Creevey's head bobbed forward and then snapped awake in alarm when he laid eyes on Trelawney.

Tarot cards were the lesson of the day, according to the class syllabus, which she reread for the third time again. Of the first things she had been looking forward to, she thought reading cards was a more accurate way to gauge people and their intentions than astrology or tea leaves.

For one thing, astrology required reading stars for people who shared a similar attribute — birthdays or horoscope signs, which made the information flawed and unreliable. Tea leaves also had a similar problem, which required a person to be careful in drinking their tea without swallowing the leaves. The leaves also had a tendency to move around in the cup—all the more to provide a flexible reading, Professor Trelawney said, but she tended to doubt that reason. They tended to slide all over the place and she wasn't sure if she'd seen a duck or a hammer when reading her classmate's future.

Even if incorrectly interpreted, the results of the reading would stay with the person, almost like a wrongly diagnosed illness, which would lead the person astray, intentional or not. She remembered an instance like that, when she'd been told to steer clear of strict professors to avoid conflicts. Of course, even when she did, it didn't stop the conflicts from appearing and wreaking their havoc on Hogwarts entirely.

Luna shuffled her deck, thinking it was a more accurate method to read a person and any relevant signs, as it was strictly for an individual and could not be misinterpreted with another's reading. She'd been lied to plenty, or so she figured. At least learning the trade from the inside out, she'd be less inclined to follow misguided advice.

"Class," Trelawney said in her usual false mystical voice that grated everyone's nerves but Luna. "Today, we begin with advanced fortune telling."

Trelawney held up a deck of tarot cards.

"Now class, the first thing we will do today is to shuffle the cards," she said. "You must learn to feel the aura of the cards—that they are calling to you."

A loud laugh pierced the quiet of the room.

"Now that's a load of rubbish," someone said, a bit loudly.

The voice, though familiar, eluded her for a moment. When she turned to look, along with most of the class, she first noticed blond hair and familiar blue eyes that she imagined had never really felt warmth during his 17 years of life.

He wasn't trying to hide his annoyance so early in the morning.

She wasn't sure what to feel or think as she saw him, sitting on the low table tucked in the corner. He seemed the perfect image of an ungrateful child only that instead of pouting, he was trying to be as uncooperative as possible. She supposed it was his way of throwing a fit.

Draco sneered as usual, before taking up the first few cards of his deck between thumb and index finger. Despite his nonchalance, she noted the irritation under bored glare.

She shifted slightly in her seat, ignoring him instead as the lesson continued.

Trelawney cleared her throat loudly.

"Before shuffling, the first thing you must do is clear your mind," she said.

Luna heard the door slam before she let out what was supposed to be a deep, cleansing breath.

Trelawney did not let her usual indignation go ignored by the remaining class in Malfoy's absence.

- - -

-

- - -

For Harry Potter, who dwelled in low spirits and little hope, the sight of her the first morning of the term came as something of a surprise he continued to linger in. He found her ready to go off to class to absorb information through her pores, likening her ability to learn as soaking up the material through osmosis.

"_You're a sponge," he told her once._

"_Obtaining and disseminating information is important," she'd replied, glancing up at him from the top of her book before lecturing him on life or death situations that required specialized knowledge._

He wasn't surprised because of her usual impeccable appearance so early in the morning or that she was exactly as he remembered; he was surprised that his heart was a little too broken and instead of some subtle intimate gesture known only to them both, he barely managed a nod in her direction. He didn't look directly at her to know what the response would be. He wasn't sure he wanted to know.

Hermione, book-bag ready and eager as ever to march willingly into the classroom, smiled as best as she could and returned his wave, ignoring the sudden cold in the pit of her stomach. He could sense her dread but didn't understand what warranted it in the first place.

She was beautiful. Perhaps not in the same way she learned to define it through her beloved books, but there was something in her that warranted his attention. It was the way her hair glowed and the careful way of looking at things with those dark eyes that he found he'd memorized in daydreams. She wasn't the type to leave one breathless at first sight. If anything, they would have agreed that love at first sight was silly. But on closer inspection, she was everything he admired—intelligent, trusting and loyal.

She was the type that although pleasing to the eyes on first glance had to be admired for her other qualities — courage and tenacity among them — things that had saved him on numerous occasions. But even for him, her virtues did not disguise her from his baser instincts, which attracted him to her. He often found himself thinking of her—honeyed hair, molasses coloured eyes, smooth alabaster skin. (She was made of sugar in his dreams.)

On that first morning, it hurt to look at her and feel the doubt that radiated off her in waves. The second guessing stood by him and he could not shake it off despite being one month into the term.

The morning appetite hadn't returned, despite missing dinner on a few occasions.

And instead of being at the standard hangout in the Quidditch pitch, he meandered aimlessly through the barren hallways, without any actual direction except to be on time to Charms, where he purposefully sat toward the front, trying to keep her outside his line of vision.

He remembered that much in between the short hours of sleep that an endless bout of insomnia allowed him.

He hadn't stopped that little morning ritual, choosing instead to stay in bed for another ten minutes or so longer instead of eating. He still lurked in the empty classroom before anyone else arrived.

Inwardly, he wondered if a version of her—the one he knew before uncovering his past, war, bloodshed and mourning—was proud of their accomplishments. They'd taken down the most bloodthirsty being in recent history with little more than her book smarts and his foolish courage.

That, he thought, was probably the most miraculous part of this story.

"_I'm waiting to see what will happen," she told him once, gripping his left hand and feeling their entwined fingers get coated with something warm. She was bleeding from a wound somewhere along her arm, which she said looked worse than it felt. He hadn't been faring any better, walking with a limp leg and barely holding himself up._

He remembered kissing her then, but didn't know how it had been—if he had barely touched her lips or hungrily pressed himself against her, only that he tasted salt and sweat and copper. It was a moment in which he got lost in, forgetting about the instances in which he was nearly hit with curses flying from all different directions because she was alive and breathing and the most beautiful thing he'd ever set eyes on, despite the fear and danger.

He whispered something in her ear which he hoped was comforting because with that brief kiss, she'd given him something he carried off in the final battle.

He wondered if she carried it too.

Perhaps she still did.

He could be optimistic when the mood hit him, after all.

And yet at times, he caught glimpses of memories he was sure he'd never lived personally and woke up to the taste of chocolate in his mouth, even when he hadn't dared reached for dessert at dinnertime. He felt warm embraces, soft smiles and a comfort he'd never received behind closed eyes. He also experienced discomfort on his toes, as if he'd walked in bad shoes the day before and once woke up with swollen eyes, despite them being dry and his not crying in the middle of the night.

He half expected someone to provide him with a reasonable explanation. As if that would happen.

- - -

-

- - -

The Lovegoods prided themselves on being somewhat experts of the lesser known aspects of the wizarding world. Despite being called eccentrics, it seemed their extensive knowledge tended to help in vanquishing evil during its eternal struggle with good.

At least, in her father's words, it was how the Lovegoods helped win the Goblin Rebellion two centuries earlier. According to the story Luna's father recited again and again, Luna's great-great-great-great-great aunt Nebula Lovegood had helped the wizards crush the rebellion by learning the goblins' weaknesses.

Cornelius Lovegood had always said the wizards had experienced trouble with the in crushing the learned the name of the goblin rebellion's leader. According to the story, the goblin leader who had instigated the uprising had kept his identity a secret so that wizard intelligence wouldn't find know the family blacksmithing tradition, which dated back millennia.

Nebula, more astute witch than her name suggested, had wandered near the camp (although if she realized it or not, Luna never knew) within earshot of the day's festivities for having won a fight earlier that day. The rumors of those days circulated of the goblin leader negotiating a potential alliance with either giants or elves.

None of the intelligence gathered had known any of the movements by either goblins or giants. Being the sort of enterprising witch, Nebula, who had partly tracked the goblins' movements during the day, had forgotten which way to exit the forest without being caught.

During the loud festivities, however, she was not being watched and listened to the rhyme the goblin leader sang.

The leader's claim to fame had been refining alchemy, or so he had said in his song that boasted of his ability to make even straw into gold.

The moral of the story, as she had understood it, was the Lovegood's ability to listen and listen well. It was what ultimately crushed the rebellion, after all.

- - -

-

- - -

Minerva McGonagall stared out the window of the office that bore the name Headmaster, wondering where she'd gone wrong in her lessons. While she'd no doubt spent time behind those walls, that space did not belong to her. She was the latest occupant in a line of wizards and witches whose power surpassed hers easily.

And yet, none were there but her.

Their memories lingered, not only in portraits on the wall, but in the very room she stood. Albus had not even had a chance to clear out

The desks in the seventh year classes were not as full as she'd remembered from previous years. The absences tugged at her heart in ways she'd never wanted to feel. Failure loomed over her conscience like a dark and persistent cloud over her long and illustrious career. But it wasn't a reputation she was concerned about. The young lives, all full of possibility, were no longer there. Instead of knowing how those pupils would grow and create all sorts of changes in the world, she was left to ponder their absences in the classrooms.

She turned toward the wall of former headmaster photographs and stared at the empty frame in the far right. He was gone again, just like in her dreams.

_When life gives you lemons…_

She found that tidying up small areas, like her office or bedroom tended to improve her mood. It was more manageable, she supposed, to organize those areas that made up most of her world. It made a little less chaos in her world to know exactly where her belongings lay. It made her less prone to being surprised.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

- - -

-

- - -

Horace Slughorn made a mistake.

He wasn't remotely thinking about Tom Riddle.

Instead, he mourned over the fact that in attempting to teach his students the finer points of potions and exhibit the delicate balance that could mean life or death, he'd made them interested in two things. One was the Felix Felicis, which most boys wanted desperately to learn. The other was the Amorentia potion, which conversely, was what every girl wanted.

He reminded himself that every student in his class was a teenager.

It didn't assuage him.

- - -

-

- - -

It started rather innocently, with a little dusting and filing in that old, cluttered office she dwelled. In between the dusty clouds she that arose in the wake of her order, a scrap of paper slipped out from under a pile of papers.

McGonagall recognized the neat scrawl, the signature beneath a request to leave and not return for further instruction.

Even the most intelligent and talented of students tended to confuse a teacher as experienced as her. The war was intending to claim one more from those protective charms and knowledge.

Still, for one as aggressively competitive student, Granger was the most puzzling case of dropping out that she'd encountered. The girl was neither stupid, nor failing any of the classes. In fact, she was the top student, making even the Ravenclaw house look underprepared in exams.

"Where did I go wrong?" she muttered to herself as she sank into the oversized chair.

Nothing quite fit her in that room, as she'd expected. Despite making it somewhat neater (although not as close to her liking), she had not managed to make it her own. Not that she had realistically sought to do so in the first place.

"Where?" she wondered aloud, and fixed her stare upward, toward the immovable and unknowable ceiling.

"It's not your fault, you know," came a reply.

She smiled bitterly, quietly, all to herself. It figured he would reappear in a moment of vulnerability. But that was the way she remembered him anyway. Anything less and she'd be suspicious.

"You finally appear," she said.

If he smiled or made any other expression, she didn't catch it and wasn't quite ready to turn around and face it.

"You must excuse my absence," he said, a little sheepish in tone.

She supposed that even the semi-recently deceased had busy schedules to attend to, including former headmasters.

"Been busy much?" she replied, finally looking at him.

That familiar mystifying smile spread on his face and she found herself trying to decipher what might be going through his head. It was the same as always, she thought.

"The demand for public appearances has decreased somewhat," he said ruefully. "But that's to be expected."

She didn't return the smile. Of all the faculty at Hogwart's, he'd been the one she could never figure out, although she'd always had the most respect for him.

"You mustn't joke about death, Albus," she admonished. "We've been fighting to keep everyone safe."

He smiled nonetheless, looking at her with same good humor as ever. Even in the afterlife, the man never lost his vitality. He would always be perpetually young, stuck in an older man's body. It made her feel old than she was, as if she'd lived a thousand years while he kept the same lightness in spirit.

"Don't take life too seriously," he said. "You've only got the one."

She sat in the much too large chair, unsure of what to say, but pointing a disapproving look at him.

"And besides, we're not here to talk about me," he added. "You're worried about those two."

She exhaled quietly, her fingers dancing lightly along the armrest signaling her unrest.

"Hermione Granger wants to leave," she said simply. "And she's half way through the period of time she's agreed to stay for her studies."

Dumbledore's smile faded somewhat, replaced by a confused look. It was somewhat bewildering to see the expression on his face, she thought, at least for someone who always seemed to know the answers and was ten steps ahead of everyone else.

"Perhaps it's time for a little chat with our students," he said.

She raised an eyebrow alarmingly.

"Who else did you have in mind?" she asked.

- - -

-

- - -

Hands in his hair, he pulled slightly, wondering why the taste of chocolate and Earl Grey lingered in his mouth. He couldn't rub the image of a dream featuring someone else's childhood from his eyes.

And after weeks of deliberate and barely veiled indifference from Hermione, he snapped. It was beginning to show in his sometimes easily irritated manner, as when Ginny tended to ask him questions about the assignments McGonagall handed out for homework. He seemed not to see the beseeching looks she gave him while asking, batting her eyelids slowly.

"I seem to have forgotten," he would tell her instead.

Inevitably, Ginny would seek out her brother for questioning, but he had mysteriously developed amnesia as well. She could not fathom why homework assignments grated on Harry's nerves so much. At least, not as early in the term as they seem to have been doing now.

Harry, ignored by the person he couldn't stop considering important, decided a conversation was in order.

Apparently, someone else beat him to it.

Ginny sought a third opinion.

- - -

-

- - -

She received the summons notice for that afternoon to present herself in the headmistress' office for another official meeting on the status of her schooling. With all the composure she could muster, she marched her way out of the Great Hall in the direction of McGonagall's office.

Hermione read and reread the note in her hand requesting the meeting and breathed in deeply. It would probably be some academic evaluation McGonagall would subject her to, she supposed. It had been six weeks since the term had begun and a periodic update was in line.

Her footsteps echoed quietly along the hallway and she couldn't shake the uneasy feeling that she wasn't just in for a review.

"Weeping willow," she said when she reached the door.

The staircase wound itself upwards for her and she walked upward uncertainly. The sight of Fawkes was somewhat reassuring, even if the bird was in bad shape, with grey and black feathers. Harry had explained the bird's cycle after he'd seen it for the first time. Still, she could almost swear she'd also seen Fawkes the way it had been described to her. She could make out the details of charred feathers and deadly grey. She looked away when an unexpected chill spread over her skin.

Instead of being met with McGonagall's usual presence, she found office empty.

"Professor McGonagall?"

No response.

She heard what she supposed was her professor's voice, speaking low, as if in a conference with someone else.

"Professor?" she tried again.

Again, nothing.

She came across the large desk, where she'd stood a few times, often courtesy of her best friends that involved some half baked plan to save the world (it tended to work, much to her frustration in finding logic to how lucky they got). The room was working its magic on her, she noted, without quite understanding why she was practically tiptoeing her way across the floor. Something about being within those walls never failed to inspire her sense of awe and danger.

"Miss Granger."

Her slow advance to the edge of the desk stopped abruptly.

That voice.

She turned toward the exposed brick wall on her right, finding the latest portrait posted. Her heart inadvertently broke upon seeing kindly blue eyes and those half moon spectacles.

Her arm slowly crossed her waist, and she didn't react until a rather sharp pinch near her wrist reassured her that no, she wasn't hallucinating this moment.

"Ouch," she muttered.

Dumbledore regarded her with a muted smile. It was comforting to know that some things didn't change. Hermione was the eternal skeptic, even when faced with proof. Truly, this was part of Harry's influence.

"Albus, I seem to have found them, although they were under quite a bit of paperwork," McGonagall said.

When Hermione tore her eyes away from Dumbledore's portrait, she noticed the books her professor held tightly to her chest. She swallowed hard, intending to hear some loop hole that would require her to stay and complete the year.

She was sadly mistaken.

- - -

-

- - -

Harry walked into the familiar part of Hogwart's. Although again, it was unusual to be called in so early, as was his previous experience.

"Weeping willow," he said to an unmoving statue, which then revealed a stone staircase.

A conversation was in order while he ascended the stairs and was now intruding. He looked at his watch to verify his mandatory appointment.

"But not before I consult a few sources, you understand?" McGonagall was ordering.

Silence.

"Right, understood."

He was right on time, apparently. A scheme was hatching again. It was too early to tell if it would be to his advantage or not. Footsteps approached him, which lightly echoed off the grey walls.

Seeing Fawkes on a bad day didn't reassure him. He reached out, petting the bird on its head. It cooed softly.

"You'll be feeling better soon," he said softly, although he could hardly imagine what it was like to be reborn every so often. The bird experienced youth, pain and eventual decay before starting the cycle once more. Magic at its most incomprehensible, he thought.

The steps stopped abruptly and he looked away from Fawkes.

Brown hair. Dark eyes. Neat uniform.

His heart dropped unexpectedly.

"Hi."

He stepped closer to her.

"Hey."

While she was pretending to be repulsed by him like two negative magnetic polarities, she mirrored his step. Bright green eyes always took her by surprise.

Recognition seemed to seep into her as if by a funnel.

"I have to get going," she said suddenly, moving hastily.

Rather than making a clean break for the door, she was intercepted by his arm, which wound itself around her waist.

His hip bumped against her side. She bit the corner of her bottom lip. Had either one of them turned, their stiff sideways stance would have turned into a ridiculous dance. One of them was bound to make the wrong move and step on the other's toes.

Her hand bunched up his sleeve, trying in vain to push his elbow. Of course, he had to be strong. The pressure she exerted meant nothing, she was sure.

Her hair was more tame than previous years. No longer was it uncontrollable and wild. The joke that any comb would break if it came into contact with it no longer applied. At least that one thing hadn't changed over the summer.

Although, instead of onions, she now smelled like sandalwood. He wondered briefly if it was to prevent tears rather than provoke them, as she had been doing before.

"Let go," she said softly.

A deep breath later, she was able to look him straight in the eye.

"Please."

Her sharp gaze cut him down and his resolve weakened.

His hand slipped over the curve of her hip and over her stomach as he let go. She was thinner than he remembered. Before he could linger that thought, the sound of fast steps distracted him. Her retreat was more rushed than she anticipated. He sighed softly to himself before pushing the door to see the Headmistress.

McGonagall awaited behind a neater desk.

"Professor," he said solemnly, nodding toward her.

"Harry," she said. "You're on time. I apologize for keeping you waiting."

He shook his head.

"Not a problem," he answered mechanically.

He looked to his right, where the newest portrait lay empty. Despite having his senses alert, he heard her say some things, although none of it really stuck.

McGonagall, sensing she wasn't getting anything across after five minutes of her talking, pushed her glasses up her nose. She sat back in the chair. It was comfortable, the mores she got used to it.

"Tell me, Potter," she said. "Any good dreams lately?"

If experience taught her anything about teenagers, it was to cut to the chase.

Although his interest had been peaked, he did not look amused. She rested her chin on her hands, awaiting a response.


	5. Suspicion

_I could be serious but I'm just kidding around,_

_I could be anything, anything but sticking around_

* * *

Hermione Granger walked down one of many barren hallways, colder in the autumn breeze than she liked and with the added solitude of the longer nights doused in shadow.

She felt heavier even though she ate less in those days.

A right turn and nothing to worry about.

Her hands dug into her coat pockets. She wandered aimlessly down the maze of corridor twists. The repetition of quiet steps in successive order was the only sound of the nocturnal route. Frankly, she was beginning to understand Hedwig the owl a little better.

To the left, and still no broken rules. Big surprise.

The quiet bothered her.

_Did anyone get used to it?_

To answer her own question, she supposed it took a while to get accustomed to the boredom of peace and safety. From the changes she's experienced firsthand, she wondered if anyone appreciated the magnitude of it all.

The effort, the sacrifice that had been made for the cause – she wondered if it was really worth it? The thought of another Cornelius Fudge with adoring followers modeled after Percy Weasley made her mostly empty stomach churn. She supposed that the uneasiness that stayed was part of the side effects from constant paranoia and the sense that everything would and could be over at any moment.

She lined up one foot in front of the other, balancing on an invisible line. Equilibrium—a strange goal to try to achieve. The most impossible of ideals to uphold. It would slip from her hands too, no doubt.

Her arms stretched out at perfect right angles on a childish whim.

All that mattered was stability.

And suddenly, the heel of the shoe made a mistake and stepped on the tip of the other. She stumbled against the stone wall. _So much for staying balanced, after all_. It was a fragile, impermanent thing to be easily thrown off by a misplaced toe, keeping her away from realizing the very thing she strove toward.

She huffed slightly, righting herself so.

_Try, try again Hermione_, she thought, more out of habit of persistence than actual optimism.

When she looked up, the Fat Lady dozed off in the frame as she neared the Gryffindor entrance. Another fully conscious night of sleepwalking. Even the mornings dawned with a tangible gloom that stayed on her skin like the colorful tattoos she found in the packets of fruity gum. A shame that melancholy didn't wash away with soap and water like the inky red butterflies of her childhood.

As she turned slowly, her ears caught the sound of a voice saying her name. She would have smiled some other time, but Harry Potter tended to alarm her with his presence as of late.

"You should be asleep, you know," she responded dryly. "It's my night to do patrol."

Apparently, it wasn't quite the response he was looking for, as he suddenly glared at her. Again, she used the usual manner of ignoring him at that moment, and began to walk away from him.

Harry felt as her robes brushed past him, producing a very cold breeze. Her constant indifference had him on edge and was the source of his distracted looks in class. His good intentions mostly extinguished, he was going to make her listen.

She had almost forgotten how strong he was when he grabbed her arm and half dragged her into a narrow hallway.

"What are you...?" she managed before her back connected with another stone wall.

The hands on her shoulders worked their way up, cupping her face. She knew she was silly not to expect the next four words out of his mouth.

"We need to talk," he answered, staring her in her eye.

_Dum, dum, dum._

Judging by the severity of his gaze, she was expecting an interrogation. Her legs stiffened and her back braced against the hard wall. This was a far cry from the brief, intimate moments they'd shared a previous season.

"Look at me."

She closed her eyes, not to contradict him on purpose but because he sounded like he was begging. It was not the boy she knew and wondered how responsible she was for this change. A flash of that final fight came to mind, making her shiver involuntarily. Despite his grip loosening slightly, his hold was firm. He waited patiently.

"What's happening?" he asked. "Why don't you talk to me anymore?"

Her eyes reflected melancholy when she finally looked at him. She sighed, studying him for a moment. Her fingers reached up, prying his loosening hold from her face.

"Things change," she said simply.

For a person that gave detailed answers in class, she was being awfully cryptic. The walking encyclopedia he'd been contemplating all summer long wasn't giving up anything.

He smiled bitterly, turning on his heel.

"Don't talk to me as if I don't know that," he said.

A few steps away from her and he frowned. He was right to feel hurt, seeing as he'd gained an impressive sum of losses in less than a decade. He briefly wondered if he should start to count her as one of them.

"You're the only one who knows what it's been like," he said.

She leaned her shoulder against the wall, looking downward. She had been anticipating the awkwardness during the term, but she had been hoping to stay away from him long enough so that her eventual absence would lessen the impact of their concluding farewells. The easiest thing would have been to part ways and not know anymore. She was willing to let the distance become the cure that let her release him and make him an isolated memory.

She had McGonagall to thank for throwing a giant wrench into the plan. She wasn't sure how much information the professor had disclosed in the meeting that followed her departure that afternoon. She didn't want to venture to guess, even for curiousity's sake. But the way his figure cut through the angled shapes of the school's austerity made it hard for her to ignore him. He didn't flaunt authority for its sake, but understood intrinsically that his actions were for a reason and always for the greater good. Her impressive vocabulary didn't allow her to articulate the version of selflessness she was attempting for his sake.

The otherwise simple Muggle boy, very much like her, had made quite an impression on her. She hoped he'd understand someday.

"I don't know anything," she said softly.

_When in doubt, deny, deny._

He turned to face her. She looked very different from the girl who had willing followed him through hell and back.

"Liar."

She was willing to forsake a little truth for the something bigger than herself. If it meant bruising him a bit, so be it, she figured. Whatever was left for them to figure out wasn't as important as minding other's feelings.

"Let this go," she answered.

She looked downward, her hair fell over her line of vision, partially obscuring her face. It was him who sighed this time and leaned on the wall across from her. His stare was penetrating despite hiding behind a curtain of chestnut hair.

"I can't," was his exasperated reply. "I need to know what this means."

He exhaled roughly and she wondered how often he'd thought about it. The memories that circulated between them were interchangeable at times, sometimes appearing in dreams or at random times. He could recollect her childhood fears and imagined she saw his phobias and aspirations as well. Especially the hopes that revolved around her.

"Why?"

Again, that smile emerged, both chilling and predictable. Her knees shook a little under his knowing gaze. For a boy she'd spent knowing the last six years, she was struck by his sudden mysterious disposition.

"You know the answer better than I do."

Harry could figure her out too well sometimes.

She pushed off the wall with one foot, making her way out of that lonely corridor. He grabbed her arm unexpectedly and spun her around. He wasn't quite embracing her, but held her with an arm around her waist. He seemed to like repeating the day's events.

"You can't expect me to let this go," he said in her ear.

Her hands on his chest, she felt the steady heartbeat beneath his shirt. She pushed away slowly, meeting his eyes reluctantly.

"But I can," she said, pointing a finger at herself. "And I will."

Actually leaving him there, however, was more difficult than she wanted to admit. Especially as he was the one blocking her escape single-handedly. It was typical of him, she thought, to wield that much influence on her. He was the one who'd taught her how to break rules, after all.

He was warm, even though she was desperately finding some way to ignore the sudden spike in her pulse caused by their contact.

"I would think that you, of all people, would need to know why this is happening. It's what you do best, Hermione—seek answers."

He noticed how she shivered, although no October breeze drifted in their part of the school. Emotional blackmail worked, after all.

"Stop," she said. Her hand fisted and connected with his shoulder. "Stop it."

For a moment, he did, feeling as though she'd been pushed enough. She was up against a barrier, both literary and figuratively.

"I'll wait," he told her instead.

When she looked up again, she saw the familiar sight of his messy hair. Her fingers itched at the sight. It was, as she was somewhat growing used to, a little soothing and terrifying.

When she finally did walk away, her temple burned where he had brushed away a wayward lock of her hair.

She penalized a pair of Ravenclaws twenty points apiece when she caught them in the hallway.

-

- - -

-

Ronald Weasley's continuing fascination with an old tin box kept him from reading the assigned chapters. He turned it over in his hands, marveling quietly at how many memories resurfaced with each item it contained.

While he had been initially horrified at finding it, the metal box was quite endearing as he read over the notes, some folded in delicate origami patterns, while others were carefully put in small envelopes.

Perhaps it was his imagination, but it seemed like ages since he'd thought about silent corners and abrupt affection. It was probably typical, he thought, that he should desire what he could no longer have.

He could blame Viktor Krum for introducing him to jealousy.

As he read old letters, each scrawled neatly on unlined paper. He didn't understand why she'd spoiled him rotten with attention he was never used to receiving from anyone. Call it the middle child syndrome, but he felt somewhat entitled to use that term (although the meaning was lost on him—trust Hermione to use Muggle psychology jargon to confuse him).

The door to his room opened unexpectedly, with one semi-aggravated Harry entering and slamming the door. Ron watched his friend cross the room and sit on the edge of his bed, sighing irritably.

"Something the matter?" Ron asked casually.

He carefully picked up the pieces of paper scattered around his mattress, arranging them in the small metal box as best as his memory allowed. Harry grunted something, fingers curling into a fist.

"Girls," Harry said cryptically.

Ron picked up his bits of paper and began to stuff them indiscriminately into the box. The look on his friend's face made him seem prone to destroying something in close proximity. Ron decided not to take any chances, snatching the last piece he'd spread out when opening the box. It hovered dangerously close to Harry's tightening fist.

"Girls," he complained again.

However deranged Harry seemed at the moment, Ron paused for a moment to consider his record with girls. He tended to exclude his fascination with Fleur and counted Hermione and Lavender Brown among his romantic experiences. The first one amounted to a valuable friendship and he was still wondering about the latter as he stashed the box under his pillow.

"Tell me about it, mate," he said. "Can't live with them."

Harry fell backwards into the bed, frowning deeply. Ron considered his friend's previous forays with girls and shuddered slightly. He'd never been stalked, had an attempted Amorentia drugging and been had girls arguing over him—all on top of being targeted by a dark wizard. Harry had a certain luck that even he wasn't envious about.

"Can't live without them," Harry said softly.

-

- - -

-

Hermione was thankful for the lack of disturbance after her shift was over.

The soft candlelight helped calm her nerves somewhat as she sat down at the small desk to do some light reading before going to sleep. She opened the cover of A Tale of Two Cities.

And then shut it just as quickly.

A huff.

She kicked off her shoes, making sure they hit the wall with a satisfying thud. She piled her hair in a messy twist and let it fall down again.

Her skirt and socks were replaced by warm flannel bottoms. She unbuttoned her shirt, letting it slide off her shoulders. An odd warmth persisted below her ribs, even after that encounter in the hall. And the one before in the office.

She frowned, dragging her fingers heavily over her skin. Reluctantly, she wondered what he would feel like under his clothes. She shook her head violently.

It didn't go away.

Sleep, when it finally arrived, was fitful. It was a lonely thing to experience, being an orphan. The resentment and feeling of loss that never quite went away, haunting the quiet moments stayed with her.

-

- - -

-

He dreamt of chocolate coins and outings with a family he didn't belong.

Still, even that wasn't enough for Harry to wake up in a good mood in the morning.

-

- - -

-

She awoke in the cold of dawn with inexplicable tears in her eyes. She rubbed them away with fists, forcing that false sentimentality down inside, bottle it up, chain it down, suppress it somehow.

Again, she relied on routine to rescue her.

As part of her morning ritual, Hermione stretched out her limbs, with her foot resting on top of the headboard of her bed as her fingers reached out for her toes. She hated the quiet of those four walls, missed the breathing of another human in her same space. She would have given anything for a roommate and given up her responsibilities as Head Girl to have one.

But that would have been irresponsible and she couldn't bear to have that on her conscious. It was heavy enough as it was already. She blamed those early years of Sunday school and the imbedded Catholic guilt for that.

She thought of the Weasley twins and their abrupt departure from Hogwarts the previous year. While they'd grown tired of Umbridge and her antics, they'd left her with one as a parting gift. She smiled at the memory, wondering if she was capable of doing such a thing.

She slid a perfectly starched white shirt off a hanger, buttoning it up carefully. She put on her skirt in much the same manner, being conscious of how the uniform hung on her body. Her knee high white socks slid up her calves and then she tied black leather shoes in neat, symmetrical bows.

The first day of her muggle school came back to her in haunting detail when she looked at the shine of black leather. Either Dobby or one his companions had worked on them, putting black leather polish them until they could see their reflections.

Her mother had been the one to help her dress in her uniform when she'd begun that terrible first day, alone and not knowing the other children in the classroom. She was in a room full of sorrow from those who did not know how to let go.

Despite her terror that one morning in September, she'd been different from her classmates. With a valiant determination of not despairing, she'd merely hugged her mother—the world as she had known up until that point—and wanted to get through the day.

She looked at the book bag that lay beside her desk. Another day was beginning and again, she was determined to see it be over.

She could already see what her day would be like: skip breakfast (despite waking up in time for it), attend class, take notes in between staring at Harry and then avoid him for the rest of the day.

She had been dreaming lately of the last battle in the war, as she wandered with Harry through an old cemetery before apparating to the Forbidden Forest. She couldn't bear to look at him and have the confirmation in his eyes that he dreamt of it as well. That look would undo her and with her departure so soon, she didn't think it wise to keep in contact with him about it at all.

She sighed, sitting on the edge of her bed. Class began in an hour.

She felt cold, feeling as though her bed was far too large for her in that terrible, solitary moment. She shut her eyes, trying to block out the missing inhabitant.

-

- - -

-

She hummed muggle songs these days, much to Ron's bewilderment. Rather than being annoyed with the minor details surrounding her, he noticed the subtle mannerisms, like her note taking in classes or how slowly she ate her dessert after dinner.

"You stick around now it may show," she muttered softly. "I don't know."

He smiled a little, liking the sound of her voice, no matter how low it was. She had a soothing quality when carrying a tune, despite being slightly monotonous. He imagined the quiet rumble he would hear if he could embrace her.

Like old times, he thought as he saw her between older volumes of Hogwarts, A History and Indispensible Magickal History when she walked by.

But perhaps, he was the only one who thought that way now. She passed by the bookshelf beside him and passed a glance down that aisle. The song died immediately on her lips when she met his eyes.

"Lavender," he said, breaking into a shy smile. "Hi."

She returned his smile tersely.

"I was looking for this title," she explained. "Project, you know?"

She walked down his way, glancing down at a scrap of paper.

"Transfiguration?"

She shook her head, browsing along the shelf, letting her fingers run lightly along the spines of books before stopping beside him. She found her book at her eye level on the shelf opposite from him. After consulting with the paper again, she slipped her hand over a red cover, pulling it away from a line of tan and grey books.

_Remedies_, printed in silver letters glared back at him in the shadows of the library when she presented it to him.

She was a long way from the girl he had known, interested love spells and random trysts in dark corners and empty corridors.

"Potions class is murder," she said.

Yet here she was trying to find ways to save people. He watched her as she leaned on the shelf. A slow smile spread on her face, somewhat dreamily while wisps of hair fell along her cheek. A loose lock covered her eye while she looked at him.

For a girl Ginny once dubbed "motor mouth," it was as mysterious as he had ever seen her. If he didn't know any better, he'd call her terse and not willing to speak. He found himself liking it.

"It's better than McGonagall. Anything she teachers is thorough," he said. "She's hell on academia."

Her laughter interrupted the silence.

"You mean on students," she said.

He smiled.

"Very true."

He hadn't even begun to think about his presentation for the class, which was scheduled in December—a good two months away for him to even begin contemplating the material.

Her laugh died slowly as she pushed herself away from the books with her foot. Her hand slid softly along his shoulder before leaving. Her dark hair had grown longer than he remembered. When his fingers used to brush her hair, they tended to stop at the base of her neck. Now the ends reached past her shoulder blades and he wondered if she would mind if his hands stayed on her lower back instead of the nape of her neck.

"Good luck on your presentation," she said before leaving.

Her footsteps echoed away in the silence of the room. He continued to feel the warmth of her hand for the rest of the day. It was irritating, but not for the same reasons as he'd remembered.

-

- - -

-

"It seems that some of you aren't doing as well in class as I would expect you to," Minerva McGonagall said. Her stern voice carried a bit of an edge to it.

The parchment she handed to Harry contained a sharp glare.

"I would expect you to find help in order to do better," she said pointedly. "And perhaps stop being so distracted. I understand that some of you have had a difficult time, but you shouldn't neglect your studies."

He got the message. And made himself not crumple the essay as he looked at it.

-

- - -

-

The tedious measurements, precise timing and time consuming preparation still wore the collective patience of teenagers six feet deep under Professor Slughorn's scrutiny. The general consensus still held that potions was an awful class, even if Snape wasn't teaching it any longer.

"Ron, pay attention," Hermione snapped, flipping his book to the designated page.

"What's going on?"

She didn't like the frown he gave her. It was puzzled, questioning. It bothered her. She pointed at the material Slughorn was lecturing about.

"You're missing out on the lesson," she answered. "You know? Poison prevention. It's important."

Funny, but it seemed to him that something had already gotten into her system already. He might have mumbled something about it, but she wasn't close enough to hear it.

His eyes wandered off to another brunette three tables away.

"Can we talk?" he whispered in her ear before the class was over.

She looked in the direction his eyes stared, seeing long dark hair. She nodded, sensing the seriousness in his voice.

The history class that followed went on endlessly for him.

-

- - -

-

It seemed that being involved in the war did nothing to gain professors' sympathy. Ginny Weasley pulled back her hair, tugging somewhat roughly at the roots, even though she wanted to pull it out in fistfuls, never mind if it made her unattractive or look crazy in front of her peers. She stared at her assignments, complete with comments and the pile of books in front of her.

How Hermione did it, she had no idea. The girl was clearly insane. And she hated how easy the brunette made it look.

Ginny's hair slipped through her fingers as her head gradually came into contact with the hard surface of the desk. Through the smooth grain of the wood, she made herself breathe.

Her mind wandered along the edge of daydreams in classes, rendering her unable to concentrate. She wasn't sleepy or tired. Quite the opposite, she felt a restless stir in her veins, and only felt alert on a broom where she could feel the rush of air between her fingers. She missed the Quidditch pitch, the enormous space behind the Burrow, any place with a large field where she had room to fly.

Her head rose from the desk and stared out of the window. She felt stifled indoors, tasted the staleness in the pages of old books she had little interest in. A somewhat depressed exhale was let out into the silent corner of the library. There was so much history within Hogwart's walls that was lost on her. The past was nothing anyone could do anything about, she concluded. There was no reason to dwell, wade or wonder about those things.

She didn't understand why her friends put so much emphasis on it, devoting their time with a near religious zeal.

Neville Longbottom studied dutifully herbology texts on the table beside her. Surely, he might be able to explain how to distill the essence of mandrake roots and their properties. He was a near expert. She'd heard about his weak record during his first year in flying lessons. She could certainly help him there. Quid pro quo and whatnot, she figured.

She scooted over in her seat.

"Neville," she started sweetly. "How 'bout I make you a deal?"

-

- - -

-

"I've always thought it was going to be me and you."

"Why do you say that?" Hermione asked.

"You just seemed so obvious for me," he paused, staring at the setting sun. "Like you complemented me or something."

Ron touched his fingertips along the edge of his palms in a roughly formed globe — a crude illustration of what the abstract concept he was trying to articulate.

"Abbott and Costello," she muttered softly.

"I was thinking more yin and yang," he said. He shook his head. "Hell if I know."

She stayed quiet, looking at him as if it were the first time she'd seen him up close.

"It's hard to explain," he managed vaguely, looking away from her. He wouldn't admit it, but seeing her confused bothered him more than he'd admit. Uncertainty was not something he liked to see on her when he was search for reassurance.

He watched her shift to the left on the fallen log they used to sit on. She was trying to move away from him.

"There's no logic to it," she said, watching the waves crash quietly on the pebbled shore.

"Is there supposed to be?" he leaned back on his hands. "I wasn't aware that reason was required for attraction."

Her knees bent under her chin as she stared thoughtfully ahead. He could never understand what was going on that head of hers. She always thought too much, and didn't vocalize her worries.

Harry had told him about those endless days during the summer when they worried about his disappearance.

In truth, he and Tonks had been sneaking around the enemy lines, trying to avoid detection. He'd been surprised at the reaction he'd received on returning. She'd hit him pretty hard, landing a punch on his shoulder before throwing her arms around him haphazardly. It was as if she didn't expect to see him again, he thought. He remembered the wonderful fright reflected in her eyes before she kissed his cheek and ruffled his hair.

"Maybe there should be."

"You're telling me," he sighed lightly. "Because I can't understand why I can't stop looking at her. I hate it."

She frowned.

"Why tell me?"

"You usually know what to do about this sort of thing. It's absolutely maddening the more I think about it."

He paused, kicked a pebble instead.

"Her," he corrected himself. "Whatever."

Blunt, as he usually answered her questions. Of course, he didn't know what exactly she had been doing since summer, trying to forget just this kind of thing in a stranger's embrace. It hadn't worked. But she wasn't about to tell him that.

"You're right. It is maddening."

He chanced a side glance at her. She hands waved around, trying to scare a swarm of insects that had accumulated during their visit and scratched her neck.

-

- - -

-

Harry saw what appeared to be a pair of amateur burglars who were trying too hard not to be caught by being excessively sneaky in the middle of a crowd. He watched as Ron and Hermione walked through the portrait hole, robes slightly out of place. He wondered what they might have stolen. Or who the mastermind had been in the plot.

She cleared her throat, running her hand through her hair nervously until it covered her neck entirely. Incriminating. At least to the ones paying attention. Namely, only him it seemed.

He berated himself. _I'm just being paranoid._

He watched as Ron spoke. Something whispered so that he couldn't hear. Excluded once more. Ron lowered Hermione's hand and tipped her chin slightly to the side.

Old habits die hard and the suspicion crawling down his spine couldn't be avoided. It was a cold feeling, like someone packing snow down his shirt in a room that was too warm.

"You should put something on that. I'm sure the hospital wing has something," Ron advised her, running his thumb over her skin.

"It's not like I need to go to Madam Pomfrey for every single little thing," she retorted, pressing her palm against her neck. "And I told you it was a bad idea going out to the lake at this time of the day."

Harry's frown deepened, but said nothing. _Let it pass._

"There's a world out there not found in books," he warned. "Aren't you tired of the great indoors?"

"I've work to do."

She slapped Ron's hand away, not entirely playful. She was warning him. A finger pointed toward him momentarily before turning away.

Harry couldn't pay attention to Ginny, who was probably asking for some sort of advice for her Transfiguration homework. She made some strange motions with her hands that he didn't entire care to decipher at the moment. Swish and flick, he dimly guessed. She'd been doing it correctly for quite some time now and didn't know why she was asking.

The evidence was mounting. The investigation only beginning. Harry accepted the role of great inquirer once more, even if it did involve his friends. Best friends, at that.

When she passed by him, he noted the spot on the side of her throat was unnaturally pink. The tip of his quill snapped as he tried to write the next paragraph of his essay.

After rummaging around for a replacement, he found his concentration had diminished. He scribbled a note and left for the owlery three hours before his patrol that night. Ginny hear him say he needed air.


	6. Wait and Deliberate

A/N: Been working on this a while. In case you haven't looked, read "Mirepoix" and "Pinpoint" so that you can keep up with this story. This is technically a sequel as I'm taking elements from those two and incorporating them here. I hope you enjoy!

A/N deux: Some slight corrections and tiny bit of editing. 10/24

A/N (again): Some more corrections and editing. Adding a bit more here and there. 3/6

-

-

-

_Reach out into the darkness__  
__And find my little girl_

_- - -  
_

Harry Potter drummed his fingers impatiently during his first official appearance at breakfast in the Great Hall. Ronald Weasley was nowhere to be seen and for that, Harry was grateful. The exchange he'd noted the night before still affected him, irrational as he knew it was.

He could expect a reasonable explanation sometime, but this didn't seem like it, judging by the latest encounter with a certain girl. A gentle smile from Ginny Weasley was lost on him as he waited for Hedwig the owl to fly in with any news. The request he'd sent in the previous afternoon remained unanswered. A pattern of four fingers, beginning with a pinky all the way to an index finger, continued to hit on the mahogany surface one by one.

Harry was practically bristling, even as Ginny pushed a plate of pastries toward him. He studied them with a wary eye, calculating the amount of icing on each as he poked it with a fork. They would hurt his teeth this early in the morning, no doubt. And yet, he craved the taste of a memory that refused to elude him.

He looked up and replied Ginny's silent question with a half smile. _Yes, I'm ok._

Despite the internal doubt that clouded her eyes, she nodded once and turned to continue a conversation on pause with Neville Longbottom. She was not satisfied with the answer, mostly since it was the wrong question he imagined. She wanted him to be ok, not just have him pretend. She only had to be patient and wait it out and be there for him when he needed her. Time heals all wounds and all that, she figured.

He heard the flutter of wings as blurs of brown, white and grey swept through the room, delivering packages to their intended recipients. A letter fell on his lap.

A minute later, a large bird landed before him almost silently if not for the tell tale sign of its claws hitting the space beside him with the usual grace.

"Hedwig?"

The owl stared at him, ruffling its snowy plumage and stood before him regally. The shiny embossed lettering on the envelope stared back at him.

Just as the bird began to flap its wings, he stopped her with a gentle pat on the head.

"Wait," he said. "I'll respond now."

Hedwig answered with a short hoot. Harry took it as an affirmative. He offered Hedwig a piece of the too-sweet pastry while he opened the thick white envelope. Hedwig pecked at the offering, eating a small piece and left the rest untouched. A small smile crept up on his face. A soft voice in his head reminded him of pets taking on the owner's traits. Nurture over nature. Or was that backwards?

He sighed at the memory.

Soulful brown eyes stared at him for a second in that reverie.

Harry pulled out a quill, making a few scratch marks on the forms he'd been sent. They read like legal jargon as he skimmed the material. He smiled ruefully for a moment, thinking it a good time to invest in a dictionary that would simplify the otherwise indecipherable terminology.

"Three days," he muttered incomprehensively to himself after skimming through an explanatory paragraph several times before understanding its meaning.

A pretty blond from the Hufflepuff table passed by their table despite being seated at the far end of the room in an attempt to make eye contact with him. She reached over to take a coffee pitcher placed in front of Harry, making sure to be extra slow in the attempt. Ginny frowned behind a book while Neville tried to explain some Herbology term. Something about mandrake roots or some plant that screamed whenever it sensed a human approaching. It sounded vaguely familiar from her first year, though between the distractions, she couldn't tell.

Harry remained buried under the newly acquired documents as Ginny observed. Not sure whether to be discouraged or not, the girl merely took the pitcher and walked away when it was clear he wouldn't look up.

The quill in hand made a few marks as he checked off a few boxes and stuffed them back into the envelope. Harry mentally calculated a few numbers before taking out the several sheets again and scribbling more things as he leafed through the papers one last time before sealing up the envelope.

"Thank you," Harry told the bird and handed the small package over.

Despite the passing girl's failure, Ginny was not relieved. Harry watched as Hedwig flew away immediately. He caught sight of another owl, similar in size to Hedwig but with grey eyes and tawny feathers. It carried a red envelope.

_Viktor Krum_, he deduced, but wondered about the howler it carried. Of all the people Krum had been in contact with during the tournament, he could only think of one that mattered. Because she was equally (if not more) important to him.

Still, even that didn't explain the reason to relay a message in such a drastic manner.

His fist clenched reflexively, defensively.

When the bird did not find its intended recipient, it flew away, most likely to the owlery.

- - -

-

- - -

Draco Malfoy learned quickly that his bedmate tended to hog the sheets. Not that it bothered him much, seeing as he felt somewhat claustrophobic in four walls when he was alone. Still, being out in the open wasn't much appealing either. He had a tendency to feel bothered by sharing—a side effect of being a single child, he supposed. He always got what he wanted, whether he needed it or not.

It was disconcerting how she took his things when they spent time together like this. She sometimes slept in his shirts—all of those happened to be the ones she'd gotten him out of in the first place. She tended to exert control over things that pleased him—rough kisses, nails dragging over his skin, loud breathing.

It should have bothered him more than this, but he couldn't even feel annoyance. An odd contentedness washed through him in the aftermath of their rough meetings.

Carefully (though he wasn't sure why), he extracted the bunched up fabric around her arms.

She was exceptionally warm to the touch when her hands unconsciously drew around him. He didn't look away when she turned slightly to the side and he caught sight of her curve of her breast. The room had never been quite this warm before, he noted in the stillness.

Pansy Parkinson sighed in her sleep when she felt a momentary gentle pressure below her ear.

- - -

-

- - -

Luna Lovegood waited for Fortune Telling class to begin. She shuffled her deck of tarot cards as she waited for Professor Trelawney to arrive with the usual lost and mystified expression on her face.

From the corner of her eyes, she saw Draco enter the room, taking a seat toward the back, away from Trelawney's view. The most distinguishing feature she could pick out about him was his uncharacteristically messy hair. Luna cleared her mind, concentrating on the deck in her hands.

The death card appeared upside down, followed by the tower, the king of swords, the world and an upside down empress. Blue eyes studied grey ones across the room, assessing a fellow classmate carefully.

He frowned at her. Why was she staring at him?

Her answer: pure curiosity. She wondered if she had any actual talent in foreseeing things to come, like a déjà vu after a dream.

It was not a good sign when the most absentminded student in Hogwarts looked in his direction.

One of Potter's friends had no business with him. Loony Lovegood—the epitome of dumb, ditzy blondes (he excluded himself, of course)—was taking an interest in him. It unsettled him.

She looked away only when began to gather the cards and add them back into the stack. His sharp eyes didn't miss the motion, but couldn't see her past the curtain of yellow hair she hid behind. What exactly had she seen?

He lingered along that line of thought as Trelawney began as the day's lesson. He tuned it out in favor of recalling how flexible Parkinson was in his bed. The image projected itself on the parchment on the table. Very limber.

It was enough to drown out the day's lesson in one of the most obnoxious voices he'd ever come across.

The thought of Lovegood's sudden interest was almost gone by the time the class ended. Luna didn't let her hunch be ignored. There had been something in the cards she had seen, especially with the reading she had provided for Hermione Granger the night before. Merely done to practice her skills, Luna found herself worried about the brunette. There was something about making a choice and she noted the crossroads clearly in the cards. The Death card stood out prominently in the middle of the spread, along with the Hermit on one side. She wasn't sure if travel would be in the brunette's future. Something about ambivalence and Hermione's nonchalance prevented her from knowing for sure.

Hermione hadn't paid too much attention, nodding as she listened more out of politeness than anything else, but seemed annoyed at the mention of indecisiveness. Something was keeping her from taking a giant step forward, although Luna wasn't sure what exactly it had been. A limitation of the cards, she postulated. She had watched as Hermione took out a deck of her own, which Luna thought had been Tarot cards, but saw it didn't contain any of the Major Arcana—only numbers and face cards.

Solitaire, Hermione said she was playing. A game for one. It seemed typical of her since they'd returned to school. While mostly everyone else had fallen into familiar socializing patterns of previous years, Luna noted how she tended to exclude herself from most people. She spoke when spoken to and didn't answer questions in class with the same enthusiasm. Outside of class, she barely answered anyone's curiosities regarding the war or the summer in general.

The game wasn't very interesting to watch. Luna only noted that while she finished her homework, Hermione tended to put away the hearts deck first. It was always the first one that was stacked neatly above the rest before being followed by clubs, diamonds and spades.

She noted how Hermione's distant nature wasn't all that unique. If she had to count the people affected by some form of trauma, she could name at least three obvious examples. With Hermione as one, Harry another and a classmate currently sitting in the corner who was barely taking notes.

His hair seemed more white than golden, as if he'd suddenly grown colder over the heat of the summer. The dark red tapestry on the wall behind him highlighted the difference, she noted from the corner of her eye. An old man before his years.

Paradox.

The reading she'd done at the beginning of class for him stayed fresh on her mind. With one word, she shattered his sense of security as they exited the room.

He didn't see it coming until it was too late.

"Careful," she cautioned him and headed in the opposite direction.

A chill ran down his spine as he watched her retreating figure disappear in the rush to the next class.

- - -

-

- - -

Ginny found her classes insufferable.

Not because she hated her professors or the school. There was plenty for her to do in between classes. Her lack of concentration centered around one person.

Dark hair.

Green eyes.

Hero of the wizarding world.

And he wasn't giving her the time of day.

She scribbled notes dutifully in class, not paying attention to the lessons. None of it really mattered. She wasn't going to use most of it once she graduated. Her thoughts gravitated toward the previous year—meetings in empty corridors, silent invitations by touch, random embraces.

It seemed so far away, out of her reach completely when she took into account his silences.

_Patience_, she reminded herself. But some resistant part of her told it wasn't enough.

Her insides did not seem to calm down, even with the reassurance of his daily presence. Something about the odd looks he directed on walls, on tables had her on edge. While others wondered if he was trying to etch the pattern of those items in his mind, she knew better. The looks were sometimes distracted, sometimes pensive, as if trying to remember something, backtracking to an earlier time when things were simpler.

They had that in common, she mused, minus the absentminded staring.

She wasn't sure if that common bond was enough to hold them together. She was willing to fight of course, but when she wasn't sure what the problem waiting to be solved was, she grew frustrated. Deep breathing seemed to fan the irritation. She was better at action, whatever that entailed.

She wondered if she should have ignored him and followed his steps during the war. While she'd been told by several sources it had not been her responsibility to fight, being left behind was worse. Like being the unwanted third wheel.

It was kind of silly, considering how Harry had fit in so completely with Ron and Hermione. On second thought, she imagined she would've been the fourth wheel. The balance would have been disrupted and they, no longer the Golden Trio.

A burden. She saw herself as a burden with nothing new to contribute.

She walked out of class in a daze as this new development dawned on her.

He (she didn't want to think his name) said it was to keep her safe. He swore it with brilliant eyes and unfailing conviction—all part of his heroics, all of it altruistic. He was stupid that way. Noble. The prince of her invented fairy tale, selfless, lacking all charm and common sense.

And she wanted him because of it. Looking at it from the current situation, it was like being rejected ahead of time and she was only belatedly realizing it.

A fog of pensiveness clouded her vision.

"Ginny?"

She didn't initially register knocking into another body.

Rejection.

Unwanted.

Friends, allies, family—those were the things that mattered to him in some order. She was last in that list.

Dead last.

A chance look up and warm brown eyes met her troubled ones. She didn't hear or see the blur of classmates move along the hallway very well.

She leaned her forehead on Neville's shoulder and bit her lip hard enough to draw blood. The pain was not distracting.

- - -

-

- - -

Luna answered a summons notice sent to her and waited in the topmost classroom inside Hogwarts castle. She looked at the perfect clarity of a nearly flawless crystal ball, noting the changes it made on the incoming western light.

A tiny rainbow appeared, shining seven colors on the floor.

Trelawney appeared, looking disoriented in what should have been a familiar space after 18 years of instruction. Luna observed her professor as she entered.

The older woman sat in front her, making sure the front end of her robes draped around her carefully as she settled in her seat.

"Professor Trelawney," Luna greeted politely with a nod.

"Luna," she answered in that mystical voice of hers that made her seem out of place with the rest of Hogwarts faculty members. Whereas the rest had some sense of authority, her seeming lack of touch with reality only distinguished her for not having enough clout to keep her students in check.

Trelawney assessed Luna behind the thick lenses of her spectacles. Luna sat still and did not fidget, even though she wanted to do something—play with her hair, entwine her fingers, anything under her professor's scrutiny.

Trelawney took her hand suddenly, palm side up.

"Yes," she mumbled to herself as she examined lines.

"I don't think we're up to that lesson yet," Luna reminded her.

"Shhh," Trelawney hushed her, waving one finger in the air. "Silence."

Luna felt a bony finger trace lines on her hand. Inspecting, it seemed. Something she was being primed for, but couldn't guess. She inwardly kicked herself for not having asked someone to read her fortune.

And then.

"This will work, it seems," Trelawney said softly to herself.

Luna's brow rose, vacillating between relief and alarm.

"Draco Malfoy needs tutoring," Trelawney informed her.

- - -

-

- - -

Ronald Weasley was not exactly the most observant of people.

Still, even he noticed the change between his best friends. They had gone and changed on him over the summer despite some obscure promise they'd made to each other once upon a time to never do that. That intrinsic understanding had somehow been left in the dust. Harry and Hermione. They'd grown closer no matter how they'd tried to it deny on returning to school. But he supposed trauma did that to people.

Though he'd been dubbed the Master of the Oblivious, he had seen the subtle patterns of behavior sneak up and push him aside, however unconscious the effort.

He had pretended to sleep in the dead of night when Hermione slipped into Harry's bed before returning to school. It had been that way for the remainder of the summer when they'd all spent it at the Burrow. Somewhere in between the sheets, the company those two shared warded off the nightmares better than any incantation or amulet ever could. But for all intents and purposes, it made him wonder what exactly their relationship had evolved into.

Despite it, he found himself being distracted by other things. Namely, one in particular he never thought would matter in the long run.

Lavender Brown tended to walk past him in class and unexpectedly he unadvertedly resisted the air supply nearby.

It was disconcerting, to say the least.

He hadn't expected to come searching, but it slowly crept up on him, this need to look at her. Admiration came secondary. He couldn't help but stare when he saw her behind a load of books, much like another. It wasn't a comparison, but he saw the differences between her and his best friend. Namely that when she read, he didn't see the reluctance in her eyes as with Hermione.

But he'd come back to school to find her a different person. She was serious, determined, focused – all the things she hadn't been a year earlier. She was no longer the girl who wanted to snog him senseless once upon a time.

And he was no longer sure that was what he wanted now.

He paid attention when she announced that she was interested in a career as a Magikal Historical Curator, a sure sign that she'd given up on Trelawney's mystical fortune-telling nonsense. The mere fact that she was being practical at all astounded him.

Truly, the war had made its impression on those near and dear to him.

It worried him.

And yet, he wondered if they still kept up that particular habit. He smiled dreamily at the thought. Minerva McGonagall frowned at him as she explained what material would appear in the upcoming exam.

- - -

-

- - -

Harry had skipped two meals in a day and wasn't feeling the slightest bit hungry.

He barely touched his plate during dinner. He ate only enough to calm the grumbling his stomach bothered with during the day and didn't bother to taste his meal, even as he chewed slowly.

He noted how the brunette sitting further along the edge of the table did much of the same. Julienned zucchini and carrot coins crowded neatly into a pile on one side. Mashed potatoes were spread out to the edges of the plate, the fork marking a circular pattern, much like a miniature Zen garden.

Inner peace was never so far away.

Consumed by his thoughts, he barely heard the familiar sound of wings fluttering into the hall. Warm brown approached the table, barely flying above everyone's heads as it searched its intended recipient.

Understanding dawned on him and Harry wished he could've swatted the bird away like a fly.

Surprise registered on Hermione Granger's face as she frowned in confusion for a moment. Despite curious eyes, she broke the seal and discreetly stuffed the red envelope into her bag. No sound appeared from the paper. She schooled her features after seeing a familiar scrawl on the page, calm returning once more in her demeanor.

Without offering any explanation, he stormed out of the hall, not even bothering to look back at her once.

- - -

-

- - -

Harry ignored the excessive noise he made as he walked along the dead end hallways. The color red appeared everywhere.

His mind stayed on the image of an envelope. Viktor Krum had sent her a defective howler.

His blood boiled.

The hall blurred into monotonous shapes of moving figures in black robes. He didn't see much of anything until he reached his room, throwing his bag down with more force than necessary.

Pacing back and forth in monotonous dance of desperation, he set to figure out what exactly it was that was making her (h-e-r) avoid him. She didn't seem alarmed by the fact the letter was silent. The magical things in the wizarding world made sense although the less ordinary aspects were beginning to confound him.

Silent letters, strange feelings and the sense that he had missed out on something that belonged to him enraged him. He allowed himself to fall back on the mattress, exhausted by the lack of sleep that always teased by eluding him.

- - -

-

- - -

Neville noted the odd way Ginny mourned. Or appeared not to be.

She smiled as easily as before as he calmly explained the parts of the definitions she tended to miss in Herbology.

Managing to dissect and decode plant anatomy was easy. Dealing with a potentially distraught girl was something far out of his league of understanding.

"How about we go flying?" she asked suddenly in the middle of the impromptu lesson.

The notable dullness in her eyes became the reason he nodded.

"Sure," he said, offering a smile as some measure of comfort.

The strong grip that she led him to the Quidditch pitch surprised him.

- - -

-

- - -

While Hermione did concede that night patrol was mind numbingly boring, she would have rather taken a shift that night instead of attending a joint study session for the first major Transfiguration exam.

She didn't really need to study, although habit more than anything dictated her plans. She ignored Harry's behavior at dinner the night before, storming off after an owl dropped a letter on her lap. Red paper lay sandwiched between the pages of her Potions book in the back of her bag.

Transfiguration terms were not that difficult to memorize. She'd read the material at least a dozen times to have it easily retained in her memory. The disgusted looks directed at her were nothing new. She'd always been aware of the oddity she seemed to present to her classmates.

Ron was slightly jarred as he suddenly sat up straighter in his chair. Harry had landed a well placed elbow to his ribs after he'd stared at her a little too dumbfounded at her knowledge.

"Bloody hell," Ron whispered to no one in particular.

Her eyes momentarily met green irises. She wasn't sure if she regretted it though. That strange warmth spreading through her chest wasn't easily ignored.

"So to, um," Hermione started. An errant strand of hair annoyed her suddenly and she fiddled with it momentarily before attempting to hide her face behind an entire curtain of wavy molasses. "To gather enough momentum, concentration is important after knowing what to aim at."

Luna shot her an equally amazed look that had nothing to do with her words. The stutter, instead of the pink blush on Hermione's face was enough to warrant scrutiny.

"Where is that in the text?" Harry asked.

A deep breath, Luna observed by the way Hermione's chest expanded and deflated slowly.

"Look in Hogwarts: A History for a reference," Hermione replied, more steadily than before. "The sixth year's Charms text also explains in full detail a similar spell."

Luna noticed how Hermione didn't look at him directly for too long.

The tiniest smile that appeared on Harry's face was mirrored in Hermione's.

- - -

-

- - -

The means of travel from point A to point B usually meant something about a straight line. Ginny ignored the diatribe in her head formed by a faraway lecture from one Hermione Granger in a time she couldn't pinpoint.

Despite Neville's unsteadiness on a broom, he humoured her for a second afternoon in a row by flying along the borders of the Quidditch pitch as she made more impressive maneuvers.

Red hair burned in the sunlight as he watched her, steady and balanced on the handle. In a word: graceful. He'd noticed from some time the occupied stares regarding one Boy-Who-Lived and how something about that pair wasn't quite connecting.

Harry had been distant, only perking up at times in class when looking in a certain direction. Although Neville wasn't quite versed in the delicate intricacies of relationships, he had more than a sneaking suspicion that Harry's source of distraction troubled Ginny. For being a pretty girl and being able to get anyone she wanted, he wondered how it was that she stayed hung up on Harry.

Ginny's arms opened, making her appear like a tightrope walker daring gravity to bring her down. Hovering near the press box where Jordan Lee presented the matches up until two years ago, he watched her retreating back become smaller in the too bright sunlight that stung his eyes.

- - -

-

- - -

She wasn't expecting to see him when she entered the common room. Her books spread out on a table among notebooks half filled with her handwriting. The letter she'd received a day earlier went unnoticed even though it contrasted brightly against white—a bleeding cut on lined paper.

She looked up at the sound.

"I need your help," he said, cautious in approaching her, much like a reassuring a wild creature. "Do you mind?"

Well, he'd never quite put it so explicitly before, she gave him that much credit. She wasn't initially alarmed when they were alone. Of course, she should have known better when she had walked up to a few steps to the low table with her pile of paper.

It had started off innocently with her lending him notes for Transfiguration when the conversation had shifted subtly from classes to the war. There wasn't a mention of their previous encounters which had resulted in her running away.

"McGonagall is really pushing us this term."

"She wants us to be safe, to know how to protect ourselves." The automatic, if sincere answer left her lips.

He shot her a pointed look, the type she used to send his way when arguing for a course of action.

"We know how to do that already."

"Yes, I remember."

The security detail went practically unnoticed by them. Protective spells were chanted every night to maintain a barrier while they slept, something they'd had drilled into them since their sixth year. She'd grown accustomed to sleeping in different beds during the summer, not knowing if the bed where she'd woken up would be the same she'd fall asleep in that night.

But him..he was always there when she woke up in the dark dawn, to contemplate his features in shadow. The one constant she was never sure about counting on.

"Do you?"

He stepped closer. Her left foot stepped behind her right one.

"With all of the security efforts we've been under, of course."

Another step.

She backed away, considering seeking possible shelter behind a curtain or an old chair.

"How could I forget?" she added.

And before she knew it, she could touch the wall. The fidgeting hands behind her back felt the rough walls of exposed brick. He had her cornered. For being so intelligent, Hermione could not understand why she hadn't seen it coming. Of course, this was what he had wanted all along.

"You seem to be ignoring it so well."

There was no anger in his voice, just an observation said aloud. Typical, really.

It stung all the same, despite understanding his intentions.

Unable to meet his yes, a sad smile appeared, dark eyes looking up slowly at him.

She could see it in the dark look in his eyes. It was longing—that gentle and heartbreaking way she could see herself reflected in his pupils. Dark green by the side of the fireplace burned into her. She'd wished for this once upon a time, she realized. Him, asleep on the very same table they stood next to, exhausted and barely resting.

"You're tired," he whispered in her ear. "Let me stay with you."

She knew exactly what he was referring to. The cold sheets upstairs behind the door were far from welcoming. But with him there…

The words didn't make an impact on her. At least none that he could see in that stony stare she devoted to the corner of his shoulder. He could've asked her help to break into the Ministry of Magic (not that they hadn't done it before) and she wouldn't have batted an eye. It was the tone he used. It was pleading, her mind informed her.

But this was Harry and he didn't beg. Not even for his life, when that damned monster had him hanging on by sheer will.

She would have had to know. She'd been there, after all, to witness him on the brink of death.

And now, if this was emotional manipulation, it was working. But this was Harry, her best friend, and he didn't do those kinds of things. He didn't ask for anything, his fame, fortune and the boundless luck that seemed to precede him after so much tragedy. The way life went for him, she wondered if someone had mixed equal parts of poison with Felix Felicis and injected him with it at birth.

The problem was not that she didn't understand him like every other female attending Hogwarts. She knew him too well. She'd been with him every step of the way since their first year and stood by him through it all: every crisis, relationship problem, class trouble and even detention. It seemed Voldemort's defeat had cemented things between them, laying some claim that they were meant for each other.

Any other girl would have loved to have been in her position. But she functioned differently, which made for unexpected thought processes dictating her conscience.

It was an irrational fear that gripped her. That despite the circumstances, she believed he would have settled down with someone ordinary, someone sweet and oblivious of his troubles. Someone who deserved him because he wanted her and not because fate had dictated it so. Circumstances had formed something between them, and she wasn't sure if it was those events which were impressed upon him, or the fact that he would never have noticed her in the first place if it hadn't been for the danger.

"Let me stay," he repeated, pitching his voice lower so that she could hear it in the one breath he sent in her ear. His fingers lightly skimmed her arm.

She wanted to tell him to go away because they had an early class tomorrow. That she had a lot of work to do, her essays wouldn't write themselves into the grades she wanted. She wanted to lead him to the door and shut it with a satisfying slam when he was gone.

_Leave_.

She leaned into him unexpectedly. Her head rested on his shoulder, breathed in the collar of his shirt, the recognizable scent of his skin. Familiarity washed through her, reminding her of the very literal bodily chemistry that prevented her from letting him go.

His heart stopped momentarily at the warmth her exhales provided. Then his arms came about her. He liked the way her hair felt between his fingers, like raw cotton. It was softer than that past summer, especially during Ron's disappearance for two and a half weeks when it was rougher.

She was trembling, even when he held her.

"No."

He saw the pink spot on her neck, slightly faded after a few days.

She thought she heard him say something like, "How silly of me," before walking around her and making a steady pattern of footsteps up the staircase.

She didn't recall hearing anything else after the door handle clicked into its shut position (or so she imagined the sound). Her insides froze, although the raised goosebumps on her skin had nothing to do with the cold. Too distracted to care about her habitual reading, she failed to notice the missing red envelope he had slipped into his sleeve before leaving.

She also failed to hear the silencing spell he used on his door before it shut.

- - -

-

- - -

The shadows on the ceiling were lonely creatures, she deduced after staring at them for three hours without pause.

Long black fingers stretched across the smooth pale ceiling. They clawed their way across the room when an errant wind flowed outdoors and whistled just outside the window. No sign of adrenaline rushed through her, unlike the times they'd gone up against actual monsters.

She carefully waded through the darkness, feeling the floor with extended toes to guide her. The cold hardwood floor met the bottom of her soles, sending shivers through her. Shoes and the soft feeling of clothes came into contact with her feet as the hard edge of her school trunk came into reach as she neared it.

The cold metal latch opened when her fingers pried it open.

She rummaged blindly through her belongings. Something circular and cold emerged beneath different textured objects: a cardboard box, books, old socks, jeans and wrinkled shirts.

A cord dragged along with the metallic semicircle, light plastic that fell on the floor before she picked it up and settled it on her shoulders. Again, she felt her way back to bed by dragging her feet lightly on the floor.

She sat on the edge of the bed and was unable to feel any residual warmth in the sheets. Her back came down on the sheets, sliding back under the covers. Her fingers felt around the metal round for protruding buttons and pressed down on a cylindrical one on the far end.

The sound of symphonies in her ears did little to comfort her. His voice continued to persist in that sadly melodic tone.

Something was missing. An odd link that appeared out of nowhere.

Mozart went ignored as the battery life on her CD player died a little. He'd been right.

Answers, she thought.

She needed answers. Before she left, there was solve one more mystery to be solved.

- - -

-

- - -

Sleep always seemed to escape him.

His face buried into the pillow, not wanting to breathe for a moment. He eventually came up for air, feeling as though poison spread slowly through his lungs in a slow inhale.

The red envelope lay inert on the edge of the desk, innocent in its current state. Neat blocky handwriting stared back at him from several pages strewn across the floor.

The precaution of insulating his room from any possible noise leaking for her ears had been unnecessary. Harry had been wrong. At least partly.

Viktor Krum had not sent a howler to Hermione.

It was a love letter.

- - -

-

- - -

The covers peeled back slowly in the shadows, the cold slowly invading whatever warmth had accumulated in the past few hours. The pull of responsibility led footsteps out into the empty night and deserted hallways.

- - -

-

- - -

Despite waking up on the couch in the common room and feeling less rested than ever, Harry was alarmed at not seeing Hermione in class in the morning.

Although he pretended to be as disinterested in most things (which was not much of a stretch, given his melancholic demeanor), a different weight burdened itself on his shoulders, heavy.

An appetite crushed by what bordered on grief, it seemed his stomach didn't bother much to remind him of the emptiness with so much as a growl.


	7. Seek

A/N: Sorry for taking forever to update this story. Haven't forgotten about it, I swear.

* * *

_Slow response, I'm feeling like an afterthought_

_I guess I'm kind of lost in space_

_-  
_

Two days was all it took for him to notice a change.

The symptoms included Hermione Granger having to prop her head up by the palm of her hand during classes. She haphazardly took notes with sleep deprived eyes that made all her scribbling nearly illegible. Even regular meals had become cumbersome for all the attention she paid to whatever book happened to be in her hands at the time.

Somewhat worried as he did with all things that concerned her, Harry Potter made an effort to look after her. Discretion was key, seeing as their previous meetings had been disastrous. He blamed his own tactlessness and figured that any overt actions on her behalf would be greeted with irritation.

Between raiding the library after hours one night and very late reading sessions the previous night, she was beyond exhausted. And while he could see her fatigue in dark circles, he also noted the determination burning in her eyes. She read at a dangerous nonstop pace between classes and didn't bother wondering how, despite being engrossed in reading material, she miraculously didn't bump into moving classmates. She seemed oblivious to a seemingly invisible intervention of random students being subtly pulled by their school robes, nudged to either side of a packed corridor or mysterious cases of inexplicably dropped book bags to keep moving obstacles out of her way.

Even if she was keeping him out, he reasoned his method of keeping her from walking into potentially risky situations was a way to keep her in relative safety during her period of intensive concentration. She barely touched any food at meals and walked along in what seemed absolute absentmindedness, he noted with concern. Asking Dobby or any of the house elves to leave any food in her room was out of the question, as she still vehemently opposed having them work without pay or freedom.

He would find a way around her argument eventually, sneaking into the kitchen under the pretense of hall duty and learning a similar spell to make food apparate beside her books when she studied in the common room.

Despite her general neglect on things like eating or sleeping, she was remarkably well dressed every morning. Impeccable almost, if not for the telltale tangled hair, which she hid by pinning up in a messy bun with a pencil to hold in place. He found he liked the way her hair framed her face when the wayward strands escaped from the impromptu hairstyle.

Whether he had realized it or not, he was buying time to try to figure out what it was that tethered him to her so.

Her research turned up little in the early phases of that investigation as mounting frustration gnawed at her insufferably. Memory and ties burrowed into her thoughts, taunting her with riddles.

Seeking answers, he'd said to her. He'd found her weakness and another scheme to keep them bonded, even if for a bit longer. The demons this time were directed inward rather than villains to be stopped for the sake of others.

She fully intended on exploiting all materials available to her before leaving as evidenced by how obsessed she'd become in the questions he'd posed, forcing her to look deeper into something she would have otherwise left alone. The late nights didn't bother her as much as she would have thought, finding the quiet the best time to absorb any meaning derived from printed words. While the daylight was bothersome to her eyesight, she found it easy to ignore all the extra noise brought on by footsteps and general conversation of everyday life.

In time, she would have answers for them both.

-

- - -

-

The time for all people to face their fears came in some way or another. Ron Weasley swallowed the last of his pumpkin juice and steadied himself with a deep breath.

Have courage, man, he thought as the morning routine led him to the second class of the day.

A familiar head of brown hair from across the room called to him through a brief flash of memory. He remembered the soft feel of it between his fingers once upon a time. And perhaps, once more he would be able to relive it.

Before the final bell rang to announce the start of class, he made his way to the final seat in the second row of the history classroom. He had it on good authority (the constant observation since the first day of term) that the object of his constant musing tended to doze off during the lectures.

As predicted, she arrived appearing half asleep while rubbing her left eye as she fought to stay alert. She paused momentarily seeing him take the ordinarily vacated seat in that corner of the room.

Her bag came down on the left side of the chair, as he had seen her do countless times. Parchment and quill emerged between her fingertips, poised just in time to hear Professor Binns discuss the historical inaccuracies of Muggle fairy tales.

Her hand buried in her hair, Lavender Brown discreetly took a nap as her dark bangs disguised her sleepless eyes. A gentle slap against her arm shook her sufficiently enough to look around. A sloppily folded triangle lay inert beside her elbow when her head bobbed downward, knocking her out of that tentative slumber.

A discreet look at her former boyfriend revealed no answers. He continued taking notes with the same bored expression as every other student, minus Hermione. That girl had the most frightening adoration for all things scholarly, Lavender noted.

Her eyes followed Patil Parvati, who giggled at something her sister wrote on the margins of her notes.

She unfolded the piece of paper, smiling a bit in recollection of how she had once done the same for the boy sitting beside her. Old love letters and silly newspaper clippings she found interesting were presented as gifts, which she was sure had been trashed somewhere along the way of his adventures. He'd gone and grown up in faraway places to see who knows what kinds of things, leaving her alone. He'd fulfilled his dream of being an actual hero instead of just pretending to be one.

She wasn't especially sad at that, only worried about his health and relieved that he'd come back breathing and in one piece upon returning to school. The frivolous relationship that had once gone on between them had been a bit childish, what with her jealousy and his lack of seriousness. Still, the laughter and affection had been real.

Three questions were written down on the paper and she was fairly certain of the identity of the author.

_You. Me. Halloween dance._

_What do you say?_

-

- - -

-

Two skipped meals in a day.

Harry didn't feel the hunger, ignoring the growls when some part of his anatomy cried for nourishment. He'd gone through worse, he figured. Days out between battlefields, reconnaissance and intense training that had been far, far worse.

Again, she was offering her part in solving whatever puzzle he presented her. Guilt gnawed at his insides uneasily, wondering what twist in their friendship had changed them so. She was the incarnation of devotion and he couldn't find reasons not to want her to stay and promise not to leave.

He drew the line of self imposed fasting when the telltale sign of dizziness reminded him of starvation. Two hours after dinner had been served, he made his way to the kitchen which continued to be run by house elves, (much to her dismay as he knew).

His long fingers tickled the pear painting and the kitchen door opened.

"Harry Potter!" Dobby greeted him enthusiastically, appearing to pop out of the wall. "So nice of you to visit."

The elf regaled him with chatter and gossip of other elves. Harry politely tuned him out, nodding every so often while his mind was heavy with possibilities of things Hermione might have found.

"Do you want to sit with Harry Potter's friend?"

"Huh?" was his intelligent question.

Dobby moved to one side and gestured with an arm to the table, where a familiar head of hair lay on the mahogany surface. He couldn't begin to guess how long she'd kept up the routine, if at all.

The seat beside Hermione afforded him a view of an open book beneath a partly closed fist. The page she found as a stopping point regarded a chapter on memory and eye witnesses. She looked at ease while asleep in the midst of the bustle for meal preparation. It was an oddly familiar sight, comforting in a way. She'd been so adamant about cooking during the summer as he remembered too well.

"How long has she been here?" he asked quietly, his eyes not leaving her.

Dobby's fingers covered his chin, considering.

"About an hour," he replied. "She didn't look up from her book."

Typical behavior as of late, it seemed. A faint smile appeared on his face. He carefully slipped the thin book from under her hand. Her fingers twitched slightly, but she didn't make another move. The cover didn't tell him much.

"Dreams and Recollections," he muttered to himself.

She'd been reading a chapter on dreams regarding symbolism, recurring images and past events. He frowned, unsure of what it was supposed it to mean.

"She had chicken soup," Dobby offered without having been asked.

"I'll have what she's having," Harry said.

-

- - -

-

Neville Longbottom noted how Ginny Weasley paid attention to the notes he provided her for the forthcoming exam in herbology. Rather than the usual distracted look that tended to glaze her stare over, the focused stare was a drastic change. The auburn shade of her hair burned like burnished copper in the light of the fireside.

Her concentration held steady as he went over the side effects of marine plants.

"Lotus leaves typically don't have magical properties despite the popularity of its practical use, but can get rid of unpleasant aftertaste of certain potions like Veritaserum and have been falsely associated with drugging properties in mythology," he droned on. "Gillyweed, which is sometimes confused for kelp, is for temporary underwater breathing."

Her eyelid twitched twice at the reminders she didn't want to see of the boy she never stopped regarded as the hero. Frustration ripped through her stomach and was quietly suppressed through sheer willpower.

"Tricolor seaweed provides a golden shade to any potion used, with the most common use being—"

"Felix Felicis," she interrupted, not looking up during her hurried scribbling. She regretted her minor outburst and intended to stay quiet, finding his voice soothing when they spent time in tutoring sessions.

"Correct," he told her.

While he contemplated her mood, neither one saw Hermione clutching the front of Harry's shirt as she slept in his arms. She was carried her to bed virtually unnoticed through the mercifully deserted corridors and the otherwise empty common room.

A smile touched Harry's lips when he lay her down. Her stubborn grip would not let go of his tie and he spent several minutes carefully prying her fingers before slipping off her shoes.

She groaned softly in her sleep, unconsciously reaching out into the empty space of the mattress. Her fingers fell on his and she stilled while he contemplated the angle of her chin for a moment from the edge of the bed.

Discreetly, he pulled the book he found her reading earlier from his pocket and slipped it under her pillow.

"Sweet dreams," he mumbled and kissed her hair.

-

- - -

-

Hermione was not sure how she arrived in her bed. The last time she recalled being conscious was while eating a pumpkin tart before the enormous weight of her eyelids forced her to rest her vision for a few minutes. Long moments, it seemed, as the pitch black emptiness of her room could attest.

The uniform dug in uncomfortably around her waist, her circulation interrupted by the awkward angle in which she lay. She shifted around, rolling to one side to better reach the button on her skirt. Before hitting the surface of the mattress, the pair shoes had come off somehow before being burrowed in the warmth of the blankets. She slid out of her clothes with the least movement possible and forgot to think anymore as the comforting darkness obscured her senses pleasantly.

She saw two pairs of eyes looking at her in the reflection of shiny glass. Warm hazel and vibrant green glowed with pride. Her eyes left them for a moment, heart full of something she couldn't quite describe adequately as affection. There was a distinct feeling of being left desperately wanting certain things, one of them being a sense of belonging. While no jealousy was present, the overwhelming need for love, approval and guidance was also there, leaving her on the point of acute heartache.

Lily and James Potter would always be beyond anyone's reach.

A look to the right and she saw a girl wearing her skin with chocolate eyes and a head of soft dark honey hair. Bright emerald stared back under a mess of black hair in the mirror when her eyes leveled directly her gaze ahead. Fingers entwined between two hands, not letting go.

She looked above the arch where the metallic frame began on the Mirror of Erised, her heart stuttering incoherently.

She woke up feeling disoriented in the early sun's daylight and didn't get out of bed until the room stopped spinning.

-

- - -

-

The first thing Harry noticed was how she didn't arrive for half the classes. It jolted him from his sleep deprived stupor faster than a caffeine rush. He'd noticed how she hadn't arrived for the first one and successively skipped out on the next two. In all the time they'd been in school together, she'd never missed class. Well, except for the few weeks which she was petrified by the basilisk's reflection, but that had been an entirely different matter.

Instead of a random monster attack, the first thing that came to mind was thought of her finally snapping.

But it seemed unlikely. She loved learning to a crippling degree that made him marvel and their classmates cringe at the thought of her devotion.

He remembered the meeting earlier that week with McGonagall. He heard snippets about an agreement, something about a predetermined time and conditions.

Despite himself, he began scribbling her name in his notebook. H-e-r. Her. Hogwart's woudn't be the same without her.

He figured she might eventually attend a university, perhaps with an interest in history and mythology. It was no wonder she never fell asleep in during Professor Binn's class. He saw her at Cambridge or even Oxford—someplace with a meaningful reputation for serious scholars and nothing less. He could picture her studying in an enormous library, pulling all-nighters, writing papers far in advance of deadlines and making valedictorian upon graduation. Maybe she'd meet some extremely intelligent scientist or another sort of genius that would understand her in the way he couldn't. She'd be happy and live some blissfully boring existence without threat of death or danger. She'd be in love with a stranger who didn't know what it meant when she pouted while reading something that caught her interest or her impulsive need to explain something useful.

He could only guess that she thirsted for normality and anonymity. She deserved to go someplace away from him and the shadows that he'd unwittingly cast in her life.

His gloomy understanding of her possible intentions carried him through potions class, where he mixed ingredients mechanically, not minding the puffs of smoke that erupted from time to time and stung his eyes, sometimes making it hard to breathe in a bit of clean air.

He needed better defenses against her, he figured. Harry could deal with an evil wizard stalking him his entire life. It was being denied the attention of the person he most wanted that he couldn't take.

He stuffed books and parchments absentmindedly into his bag when he noticed everyone walking out from yet another class. The note McGonagall had slipped him with his returned assignment on efficient magical procedures went unread as his mind was consumed with variations of Hermione's near future between footsteps toward the afternoon brightened hallway.

And then he saw her.

Just outside the door, she was leaning against the opposite wall, the strap of her book bag held tightly between her fists. Dark eyes searched him, uncertain, but determined.

They didn't exchange words, but he understood she meant for him to follow her steps.

He knew he always would, just as she had done for him.

So he did.

-

- - -

-

The creases in the paper were a mystery he intended to decipher. Tiny valleys and indelible crinkles fascinated Ronald Weasley, who intended on replicating the same folds that made up old letters, all random thoughts and intermittent dreams sprawled on numerous pages.

Inspiration struck as he stood up with a half formed idea hitting him lightning-quick. He guessed that Hermione's influence was finally making an impression on him, as he found himself being drawn out the door of his room.

The rare impulse propelled his feet forward to the library.

-

- - -

-

Hermione handed him what seemed to be half of a bookshelf's contents as they made their way through an aisle. The heavy load filled his arms, which he carried without complaint.

"This looks interesting," she commented, pulling on the spine of a red leather bound book.

_The Mind's Eye_, he read on the cover as she laid it on the growing pile.

"Umm," Harry began, unsure of how to question to her method. "What exactly are we looking for?"

She seemed to ignore him, as she moved further along the reference section. He followed after her, watching how her fingers traced along the rough and smooth textures of different coloured book spines.

She paused midway between _Methods for Interpreting Neolithic Runes_ and _Magical Dream Retrieval_.

"You need to read up on this as well," she stated simply. "If we're to find answers."

He nodded.

"Light reading?" he tried.

"Not by a long shot," she replied. "We both want answers and we have to look everywhere."

The books didn't feel very heavy in his arms. She was using plural. She was including him. Finally. He saw an opening.

"So I've been thinking," he started. "When are you supposed to meet with McGonagall?"

Her hand stopped skimming the canvas surfaces of oversized reference books and landed atop a massive encyclopedia whose title he didn't bother to read.

"Not sure," she replied. "She hasn't contacted me for any more conferences. And you?"

The volume stayed between her hands, fingers drumming mutely over the canvas cover. She looked over her shoulder at him, studying his face. He looked up from her shoes to those inquisitive eyes.

"Nothing here either," he lied.

A slight pinch appeared between her brows as she hummed quietly under her breath. For the first time in their long friendship, she doubted him.

Ron stared at the reunited pair with something like amazement in his eyes when he walked in the library and spotted his friends checking out a small hill of books.

Sidestepping them completely, he focused on searching for the title of a particular book.

-

- - -

-

The mandatory tutoring sessions were not going well for Luna Lovegood.

He arrived fifteen minutes late to his tutoring lesson. Deliberately, she already knew from his reluctant demeanor.

She wasn't exactly sure how she'd agreed to it in the first place, but having to explain divination arts to Draco Malfoy wasn't going as smoothly as she wanted. As with Trelawney, he tended to ignore what she had to say, barely taking the time to jot down any notes relating to the lessons in class. It wasn't going to be easy, she knew, but grew slowly exasperated with all the non-progress she appeared to be making.

Page 174 was actively ignored of two copies of _Divining the Future_ atop the velvet red tablecloth by two sets of eyes. Draco's fingers drummed inaudibly on the soft surface in quick succession. A card deck in her hands was being shuffled softly in her hands, as she attempted to explain card layout for the fifth time.

"Celtic cross," she said aloud.

She breathed in silently, retaining her serenity as she laid down individual cards on the table. She pointed to the first card.

"The first card to be placed is the…?" she trailed off.

"Significator," he drawled.

"Good," she smiled encouragingly. "What does it mean?"

He scowled inwardly.

"The personality of the querent," he replied, somewhere between bored and annoyed as the knight of pentacles stared at the ceiling.

Luna's eyebrow quirked upward. For the past hour, she thought his lack of response to anything hadn't told her much on what areas to help him improve. Trelawney hadn't offered much in the form of advice, simply waving her off in the classroom's direction and saying she had homework to grade when Luna arrived with questions.

She placed the deck directly at his fingertips.

"Continue with the rest of the layout," she instructed.

His index finged ended the final stride on the table, stopping the drumming immediately as a steely grey glare fixed on her. The initial six cards on the table were set dead center.

He pointed to the five of swords .The lovers and three of cups turned up reversed as the next cards turned.

"Decisions need to be made, something about an admirer," he said. "Romantic problems and that nonsense."

She heard him mutter something else about silly girl problems.

He stared at the spread, which were turned, but mostly uninformative as he looked at the three most prominent cards. A question formed on the tip of his tongue and although words failed him, she noted the uncomfortable curiosity lingering in his eyes.

Four cards were placed along the edge of the table. Again, the fortune directed a future of miscommunications and arguments—the same circular situations which would inevitably make him dizzy. The eight of swords was the final card he revealed upon turning it over.

"Confusion and working through problems, especially with loved ones," he drawled out. "A long term commitment, hard work paying off and happily ever after shit. A bloody fairy tale in the making."

A frown etched across his forehead as he looked over the spread carefully. Reputation and relationships were listed in the cards, all rather uncannily familiar. Pansy Parkinson came to mind, all soft skin and aloof indifference, which attracted him so. She tended to be the only person to understand him, not simply following orders like Crabbe and Goyle, but going along in her own direction which somehow intersected with him.

"Wait," he paused, pointing to the first card, the knight of pentacles turned upward. "Who is this reading for?"

The answer came as that annoying smile appeared, lifting her lips incomprehensively halfway on her face. He found himself wishing he could hex that damn expression off her face.

Glowing eyes, gentle comprehension stabbed at him like porcupine needles. But unlike Potter, he couldn't just take his wand out and curse her with due reason, no matter how justified it was to him.

"A person who is initially cautious in relationships but eventually finds the person he is supposed to be with," she explained.

No. He would prove her wrong.

Because she was wrong.

Both hands opened flat with alarming force on the table's surface. The slam did not make her blink. The resounding ring of the clock striking five o'clock interrupted their session. It also meant the biweekly house head meetings was about to start.

He didn't need Luna to tell him about his love life. Pansy was not the end-all of his relationships, he was sure. If anything, she was a starting point and he was sure there were plenty more conquests to drag through the sheets of his bed. There had to be.

Anger coloured his vision to an especially dark blood red hue. She noted the vein near his temple pop out as his teeth ground together painfully. The Malfoys didn't depend on gypsy tricks to know what the future would become for them. They were leaders, born to make changes occur, make up the rules of the game and win (translation: cheat without a hint of scruples).

They weren't supposed to be figured out like a damned puzzle that needed to be put together. He had stopped trying to figure out what the hell had gone wrong and was beyond trying to make any sense of what the hell he was supposed to do. Luna wasn't supposed to be leading him in the right direction or try to change him, as he'd heard women often tended to do. His life did not revolve around deciphering the vague meaning of horoscopes and other people's intentions. Do or do not was the unofficial family motto, and one that he followed because it made sense.

An impromptu plan formed. The initial scowl and deep set frown was replaced with a flashing smile.

Her expression did not change despite the obvious display of malice he intended to pursue. He didn't let her see how she irritated him so with a look that practically dared him to go through with it.

Let it never be said a Malfoy backed down from a challenge.

He raced to the meeting.

-

- - -

-

The meeting began promptly five minutes after the clock rang.

Rather than sitting in the usual north corner, Draco managed to find a seat behind his intended victim. He could feel Luna's eyes boring into him even if she wasn't looking directly at him (as far as his peripheral vision could inform him).

For the first time since he was posted as Head Boy of Slytherin, he noted the distance between his sometimes rivals from Gryffindor. Two thirds of the Golden Trio weren't on good terms. Granger sat in front of him, devotedly playing the party of the consummate student while Potter was on the opposite side of the room, although not quite as diligent at paying attention.

The students listened to the updates from professors McGonagall and Slughorn on changes the ministry had made. The oral reports on their patrol duties went along at a snail's pace, stagnating the impulse of his resolve for a moment. At the sound of Granger's voice and the sight of McGonagall's apparent disapproval of some occasional harshness in subtracting points, he perked up.

Somehow, he'd failed to notice how she had a penchant to break the rules she herself followed. It was a pattern that began with Potter and had managed to disintegrate in the course of the term.

His left hand covered up a smirk as she blandly recited her version of the events.

Luna did not shift in her seat beside Harry.

Although Draco should have been disgusted with himself on some level of even touching a mudblood, he was beyond giving a damn. She represented the perfect opportunity to prove that she was just like any other girl. Boring. Normal. Not special. An ordinary witch with too much time on her hands spent on books and meaningless obscure information.

Despite his lack of attraction to her, he was showing that no girl meant more to him than the next one in line. And who better than one of his sworn enemies to make that point loud and clear?

He waited as she gathered her things, which took less than a minute, but felt longer due to his impatience.

"Fuck it," he muttered to himself.

It took less than five steps to wind around the table and stand directly in front of her when she finally turned around. Her puzzled look was perfect—bewildered and unsure. He didn't bother to look at her eyes as he steeled himself for the next move.

For all his effort in attempting to keep Hermione safe, Harry did not see this coming until it was too late.

Like a man about to jump into the deep end of a pool, Draco took a deep breath and leaned in. Shock registered and widened her eyes, but the rest of her was rendered paralyzed as she merely stood as an object of fascination for an audience of her peers and professors alike.

He made no other contact with her as he kissed her lips gently. Nothing at all like with Pansy who was all teeth and a rough slide of lips, he thought as he unwittingly made the comparison. Apples and oranges and all that.

Harry's breath caught at the surreal vision of Hermione and Draco. He felt something holding him back from completely murdering Malfoy on sight. Luna had taken hold of both arms, preventing him from pointing his wand anywhere.

Still, Luna knew Draco would not leave completely unscathed.

Hermione's reaction once again reminded Harry that he was not wanted. She didn't need a bodyguard. She was strong enough to take care of herself.

The last thing Draco saw was Hermione's fist in his face. He had failed to account for the right hook she had once presented him four years earlier.

The lesson of the day: there was no clean getaway.

-

- - -

-

Ginny noted the determined look in Harry's eyes when he bolted past her in the hallway. She wasn't able to deduce much from the momentary appearance before he barked a password to the fat lady's portrait and marched to the common room without so much as a word to anyone else.

The news, considered at first too fantastic to be true, would reach her ears in roughly five minutes, considered average time with most scandals.

She didn't see him for the remainder of the day, unsure if that was a good or bad thing. She was able to breathe a little easier, nonetheless, at the lack of his presence.

-

- - -

-

She lay down, facing the fading orange light cut across the smooth white ceiling. A light knock at the door. The fading headache returned, as did the arm to cover the top half of her face. The light behind two eyelids turned from a dull red to a faded black.

She didn't answer.

A moment's hesitation. Waiting, as usual.

Steps made themselves heard as she made an effort to breathe coherently.

Inhale. Exhale. Repeat.

A dip in the mattress moved her to the side slightly.

"You alright?"

Concern.

"Hermione," he tried again.

"I'm going to commit murder," she stated. "And soon."

No laughter. Not even a chuckle.

"I don't blame you," he said calmly. "If Malfoy did that to me, I'd have done the same."

Her arm moved from covering her eyes to propping her up. Vibrant red colored the inside of her lids once more before she snapped them open. Green irises filled her vision, the exact opposite of what she had seen a moment ago. He met her eyes evenly.

"The fact that no one took points off is a good thing, don't you think?" he tried. "It means everyone thinks you were right to do what you did."

Something flammable coursed in her veins. Flashes of hatred still smoldered, threatening to blow up at the slightest provocation like cartoonish dynamite. He envisioned the eventual mushroom cloud in the wake of her fury—a testament to the rage she was capable of harboring and made explode unexpectedly.

"Although I don't think it's a good idea to confess to a crime before you've done it," he told her.

She snorted.

"Oh, please," she retorted. "If that had been the case between us when you hatched a mad scheme, we would never have lasted this long."

He looked down at her hand, which clutched at the edge of her pillow.

"I never hatch schemes," he reminded her.

The ceiling took her attention, as she didn't break eye contact with it. She was the one with the smarts, the plans, the intentions to make him succeed. She was more driven than anyone he'd met.

"That's right, you improvise."

She felt before she saw him sit on the bed. Reflexively, she curled herself against the wall. Actual contact with people had not been a regular part of her routine for some time. Not that warmth hadn't been part of the equation in the exchange as far as she remembered.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

He smiled easily, more so than either expected it to surface. Amusement twinkled in his eyes. Suspicion remained in her stare.

He hoped she wouldn't raise her fists.

"Improvising."

-

- - -

-

Ron gaped like the plastic prized trout hung up in his father's office for approximately fifteen minutes, unable to overcome the shock of the rumour.

"He did _what_?" he repeated for the third time since hearing the story.

He was more surprised Malfoy hadn't been outright murdered by either Hermione or Harry. Since seeing them in the library, he figured it was premature to think things were finally beginning to go smoothly. A very ugly wrench had been thrown into those plans, disrupting his hopes for the two.

Still, when he finally snapped out of his distress, he found Lavender also reacting to the story with equal alarm when one of the Patil twins commented on the matter.

He slid the small paperback edition he'd taken earlier from the library further into his bag. The note he'd slipped between the table of contents and the front cover would remain unseen before he'd finished writing and rewriting it at least seven times.

-

- - -

-

Hermione vented for exactly ten minutes, launching into a tirade of idiot boys, improper behavior and how she could not possibly be held accountable for her actions while being attacked in public.

"I have witnesses!" she proclaimed angrily.

She wasn't exactly fuming, he realized, when he found himself facing the doorway at a horizontal angle as they both shared her pillow. Her embrace was warmer than he remembered. As usual, her arm draped over his ribs, fingers tightened on the fabric of his shirt. Muscle memory and whatnot.

A warm breeze blew in his ear.

"What are you thinking?"

He smiled.

_I want you._

"Sleeping."

The darkest of nightmares didn't come to mind. He could barely recall the loneliness and survivor's guilt of that bleak morning everyone would call a triumph. Instead, the closeness and realization of being alive ran through his memory as the scent of her hair drifted around him.

Another breeze. More forceful. A sigh.

"This is wrong."

_But I don't care._

His hand covered hers. She slid out from under his grip, her fingers tracing upward, over his throat and face until she found that familiar spot near his temple. The familiar pattern traced out underneath, back and forth—a zigzag. Even blind and in the dark, she didn't need eyes to see it.

"Don't you think I should be the one hugging you like this?" he tried lightly.

His attempt at lightheartedness did not endear her much.

"You'd only try to take advantage," she pointed out dryly.

A lie. One that she knew too well. He wasn't into impulsive displays of affection. She had practically bullied him into hugging her the first time. Even then, she was usually the one to throw her arms around him without caring or bothering to ask.

"And you're not?"

The pattern she traced suddenly stopped.

Conscience, he reminded himself. She had a conscience the size of Jupiter. A place where the monsters of morality and altruism roamed freely, destroying most vestiges of desire. He wondered if the occasional selfish need for love was also crushed in that planet.

The hypothesis was asking to be tested.

His hand covered hers, planting it firmly against his skin, effectively covering his eye like a warm patch. Pulled slowly, almost reluctantly, slender fingers encased around his own focused in front of his eyes. Pale skin and palm lines cleared in his vision, no longer blurred.

Another finger traced her hand from the tip of white nails around the rounded edges to rough knuckles and the curve of a palm. The subtle indentures made themselves present in his memory, carved out a place between all the moments spent with her.

She wasn't sure what exactly he was trying to accomplish.

He traced the angle of the thumb, found the blue veins that connected in her wrist. Turning her hand over, he studied the lightly tanned skin, found a freckle under her knuckle, a tiny childhood scar between thumb and index finger. The crescent scar was smooth, unnoticeable under his touch. He didn't see any trace of the bloody lip she'd given Malfoy.

He didn't kiss her hand when he pressed her knuckles against his lips. She thought she felt him smile beneath her bones.

_I love you._

She very suddenly forgot about Malfoy.

"You already know."

Her hand moved away from him, gliding her arm down to his chest and onto the mattress. Her fingers dug into the sheets fiercely, much to his amusement.


End file.
